Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (HOLLAND HOUSE) BILL

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (FALMOUTH) BILL

"to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Minister of Transport under the General Pier and Harbour Act, 1861, relating to Falmouth," presented by Mr. John Maclay; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 77.]

Oral Answers to Questions — INNKEEPERS (LIABILITY FOR GOODS)

Mr. Ronald Bell: asked the Attorney-General whether he will consider amending the law relating to the liability of innkeepers for goods left unattended on their premises; and, in particular, for motor cars left in open car parks in the curtilage of inns.

The Attorney-General (Sir Lionel Heald): My noble Friend the Lord Chancellor has not sufficient evidence at present to justify amendment of the law in this connection: but he has in mind the possible re-establishment of a law revision committee, and if such a committee were set up this branch of the law might be suitable for reference to it.

Mr. Bell: Can my hon. and learned Friend say when he thinks that committee is likely to be set up, and will he impress upon his noble Friend the desirability of its re-establishment at an early date?

The Attorney-General: I will bring that matter to the notice of my noble Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — BROADCASTING (SPORT COPYRIGHT LAW)

Mr. Kenneth Thompson: asked the Attorney-General if he is aware of the unsatisfactory state of the law as regards unauthorised rediffusion of wireless broadcasts, particularly of sporting events; and if he will, accordingly, consider the desirability of introducing amending legislation in the light of present-day conditions.

The Attorney-General: I am aware that difficulties arise over wireless broadcasts of sporting events. A committee is now considering what changes are desirable in the law of copyright, and I understand from my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade that this committee has already taken evidence from the Association for the Protection of Copyright in Sport, which represents all the main sporting and athletic interests.

Mr. Thompson: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that, owing to the present unsatisfactory state of the law, negotiations have broken down for the broadcast of this year's Grand National, which is a very serious matter for old people and people lying ill? Can he give an assurance that the present law is sufficient to protect promoters if they agree to the broadcast?

The Attorney-General: I can quite understand that my hon. Friend's constituents regard this as a matter of national importance, but I am afraid I am unable to give any assurance, let alone any forecast, as to what is going to happen on Saturday.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF FOOD

Ladies' Hairdressers (Tea and Sugar Allocation)

Mr. Norman Dodds: asked the Minister of Food if he will arrange for an allocation of tea and sugar to ladies' hairdressing establishments to enable cups of tea to be provided to women undergoing the long and tedious process of permanent waving.

The Minister of Food (Major Lloyd George): No, Sir.

Mr. Dodds: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman appreciate that when ladies' hairdressing takes place in a section of a


departmental store which has a restaurant, or when the business is close to a café the law allows as many cups of tea as the customer wants, which is in marked contrast to what happens in the case of the small business in a residential or rural area? Is he not aware that the experts state that to give fair play all round the additional amount of tea required works out at only two tea leaves per week for every five people in this country over 18 years of age?

Major Lloyd George: I am afraid I am not in a position to check the hon. Gentleman's calculations, but the policy is that the issue of rationed food must be confined to catering establishments. Where there is a large store which may have a catering licence, that is all right, but I cannot allow the issue of rationed food to other than catering establishments. I would point out that there is nothing to prevent such places issuing unrationed commodities to their customers who are waiting.

Mr. Dodds: Does the Minister suggest that women undergoing this process should have coffee without sugar? If tea rationing is to be abandoned in the near future, this problem will not arise.

Mr. Archer Baldwin: In view of the national importance of this Question, would my right hon. and gallant Friend consider giving those concerned the chance of having beer instead of tea if they want it?

Industrial Canteens (Meals)

Mr. William Shepherd: asked the Minister of Food the number of meals served in industrial canteens in 1944 and 1950, respectively.

Major Lloyd George: Statistics are not collected continuously, but samples taken in particular weeks show that the number of meals served weekly in industrial canteens rose from 55 million in December, 1944, to 58.6 million in November, 1950.

Meat

Mr. Donald Chapman: asked the Minister of Food whether he will consider introducing regulations enforcing the display of price tags on meat in shops.

Major Lloyd George: I have asked representatives of the meat trade for their views on this matter.

Mr. Chapman: Will the Minister press this matter rather more energetically? Is he not even aware that women buying meat in the shops have great difficulty when prices change—as they are now about to change even more, with the reduction in the subsidies? Is he not aware that they have great difficulty in checking the price of a lump of meat on the counter with the list on the wall and making sure that they are being fairly treated about price? Will not the right hon. and gallant Gentleman press this matter with some vigour?

Major Lloyd George: I am most anxious to do all I can in this matter, but I would rather do it with co-operation than without it.

Mr. Cyril Bence: asked the Minister of Food if he is yet in a position to make a statement on the arrangements he is making for a mission to undertake discussions with the Argentine Government respecting future meat shipments.

Mr. Frederick Willey: asked the Minister of Food whether he will make a further statement on the progress of the negotiations about the procurement of meat from Argentina.

Major Lloyd George: No, Sir.

Mr. Bence: In view of the increasing shortage of meat, will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give an undertaking that he will not keep the promise made during the General Election to send private traders out to scour the earth, competing one with another for a scarce commodity?

Mr. Willey: Cannot the right hon. and gallant Gentleman appreciate that we have no wish to embarrass him on this matter, and, unlike the late Opposition, no wish to be unhelpful; but will he not do his utmost to speed up these talks, because we are reaching the time when we should expect some progress to be reported?

Major Lloyd George: I will certainly do my best in the matter of time and I hope to improve on the performance of the late Administration, who took one year and 10 days over the last negotiations.

Brigadier Christopher Peto: asked the Minister of Food what arrangements he has made to purchase meat of any kind in Germany for import into this country for consumption here.

Major Lloyd George: I am always ready to consider offers of carcase meat from any source, but I am not aware that Germany has any exportable surplus at present.

Brigadier Peto: My Question asks whether my right hon. and gallant Friend has made any purchases of meat of any kind to date. He did not answer that part.

Major Lloyd George: I rather gathered that my hon. and gallant Friend asked what arrangements we have made. I am not aware that there is any exportable surplus at present. As a matter of fact, in the last 12 months Germany has been a considerable importer of meat from abroad.

Brigadier Peto: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that there is no meat rationing in Germany, and that the price compares very favourably with meat purchased in this country; and is he further aware that it might well be possible to increase meat production in that country by exporting from this country tractors or other mechanised vehicles?

Brigadier Peto: asked the Minister of Food (1) the total tonnage of frozen or chilled meat imported for, and consumed by, the British Army of the Rhine in 1951; and a similar figure which is his forecast for consumption by the British Army of the Rhine in 1952;
(2) whether he will purchase a considerable proportion of fresh meat locally for the British Army of the Rhine and, in consequence, divert some of the frozen or chilled imported meat for consumption in this country.

Major Lloyd George: During 1951, 5,402 tons of meat and offal were shipped direct from the exporting countries to Germany for the use of B.A.O.R.; during 1952 we expect about 7,900 tons to be so supplied. As regards the second Question, prices of meat in Germany are high and it is more economic to supply the British Army from

meat which would otherwise come to the United Kingdom.

Brigadier Peto: Could my right hon. and gallant Friend give the difference in price which makes him say that prices are high? That was not my experience last week-end.

Major Lloyd George: It is a question of purchasing at the suppliers' prices and those prices are very much higher indeed—almost three times as high.

Feedingstuffs

Mr. Ian Horobin: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware of the sanitary nuisance caused by the dump of feedingstuffs on Bedford Mill site, Oldham; and how long it will be before this site is cleared.

Major Lloyd George: The site is now cleared.

Mr. Horobin: While I thank my right hon. and gallant Friend for his assistance in this matter, will he give an assurance that in future his Department will consult with the sanitary authorities before placing these unpleasant things in their areas?

Major Lloyd George: I will certainly look into that. These were rather peculiar circumstances altogether, but I will certainly look into the matter.

Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton: Is the Minister aware that, unlike the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Horobin), most of the people in Oldham regarded this nuisance as highly insanitary?

Mr. Gerald Williams: asked the Minister of Food what stocks of animal feedingstuffs are held at present.

Major Lloyd George: It would not be in the national interest to give this information.

Mr. Williams: That is what the Socialist Minister told me. Will the Minister say whether he is satisfied that there are sufficient feedingstuffs, in view of the great importance of meeting the submarine menace in case of warfare?

Major Lloyd George: In this instance I think my predecessor was right, if I may say so, but, dealing with the second part of the supplementary question, obviously I cannot say there are enough feedingstuffs because we could do with


very much more in order to increase our home production. Further than that, I could not says.

Jam (Sugar Bonuses)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Food if he can yet announce the allocation of sugar bonuses for jam making in 1952.

Major Lloyd George: The House is aware that the 10 oz. sugar ration can only be maintained by reducing the number of bonuses. This summer I shall only be able to find two extra pounds of sugar. I think it will best meet the convenience of the public and the requirements of the fruit season if one pound is issued in May and one in July.

Mr. Dodds: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman state how this compares with the issues in 1951?

Major Lloyd George: It is down on 1951, but the same as in 1950. I would remind the hon. Gentleman that the sugar issue for this year had already been cut by 75,000 tons before I came into office.

Mrs. Jean Mann: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the housewives will receive this announcement with great disappointment? Is he aware that the 1951 ration was 10 oz. throughout the whole year and that in addition we had a bonus jam issue in April, May, June, July, August, September and Christmas? Is this the kind of treatment we are to expect from the right hon. and gallant Gentleman? Surely he can do better than that.

Major Lloyd George: If any housewife expresses disappointment to the hon. Lady, I hope that in fairness she will refer to my predecessor.

Mrs. Mann: That is a very thin excuse. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman must think up something better than that.

Eggs

Mr. F. Willey: asked the Minister of Food whether he is yet able to say if eggs will be sold off ration this year.

Major Lloyd George: I cannot yet say.

Mr. C. N. Thornton-Kemsley: Can my right hon. and gallant Friend say how it is that this afternoon an itinerant street trader was offering a whole barrowload of eggs in Oxford Street marked "Suitable, for cooking and frying"?

Major Lloyd George: They were probably marked "H."

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that grade 1 eggs purchased by packing stations at 3s. 7d. a dozen are sold by retailers at the rate of 5s. a dozen; and who gets the difference.

Major Lloyd George: Yes, Sir, but smaller eggs are sold at various prices down to 3s. a dozen. Over the whole range the difference is less than the cost of collecting, packing and distributing home-produced eggs.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that he is at one and the same time overcharging the public and under-paying the egg producers? Will he, perhaps, ask the Lord President of the Council to do a spot of co-ordination in this regard, too?

Major Lloyd George: I think that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will feel happier to find that the price over the year is an average price; and the average difference between the price that the producer gets and the consumer pays is not enough to pay for packaging and distribution.

Mrs. Mann: asked the Minister of Food the position regarding supply of eggs this year, and bonus issues of sugar for jam.

Major Lloyd George: In the first 12 weeks of the year there were 29 allocations of eggs, on average, compared with 27½ during the corresponding period last year. As to future supplies, I cannot add to my reply to the hon. Member on 25th February last. With regard to bonus issues of sugar for jam, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave today to the hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Dodds).

Mrs. Mann: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say whether we are now to get the same number of eggs as we have had over the last five years—two years ago, for example, they were off the ration altogether—or have the hens gone broody under a Tory Government? Is the Minister also aware that his reply about the bonus issues of sugar for jam is so disgracefully inadequate that the Housewives' League will rise up out of its, grave?

Mr. C. W. Gibson: Is the Minister satisfied that he is getting all the eggs that he ought to get at the collecting stations from the poulterers?

Major Lloyd George: If the hens have gone broody, I can only say they went much more broody last year, because supplies this year are slightly better than they were under the late Government. It is impossible to say what the future position will be.

Staff Dismissals, Scotland

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that there is discontent because of the manner in which married and single women, respectively, employed in his Department's offices in Scotland are being dismissed; and if he will state on what principle women in his Department are selected for dismissal.

Major Lloyd George: I am not aware of any general discontent on this subject in Scotland. Temporary staff in the clerical grades are selected for discharge according to the principle of first in last out laid down in the national redundancy Agreement.

Mr. Hughes: Will the Minister make some inquiries about the discontent, because I have evidence that there is discontent? Will he say how he sees that there is fair play in this matter—how he distinguishes between married women and single women, and married women with families with those who have not families?

Major Lloyd George: On the question of redundancy, the principle of first in, last out, was accepted at the time, and I understood that it was accepted by the staff association. I suggest to the hon. and learned Gentleman that the only possible way of dealing with this matter is through their staff association.

Sir Waldron Smithers: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that the only way to stop shortages and all these complaints is to close down the Ministry of Food and to stop bulk purchase, because if we restrict consumption we restrict production?

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Food how many members of his staff in Aberdeen have been dismissed

this year; how many more he intends to dismiss and when; and why they are being dismissed.

Major Lloyd George: No staff have been dismissed in Aberdeen so far this year. The abolition of National Registration will result in a saving of about 17 staff in Aberdeen, but they will not be dismissed before the end of May.

Mr. Hughes: But for those who are dismissed, or are about to be dismissed, is it proposed to offer them any alternative employment or are they simply to swell the numbers of the unemployed?

Major Lloyd George: We will do what we can about that, but I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman agrees that if they are redundant it is not in the national interest to keep them on.

Subsidised Imports (Duty)

Mr. Arthur Holt: asked the Minister of Food what imported foods, on which a subsidy was subsequently paid, bore import duties during the last 12 months for which figures are available; and if he will give the amount of duty paid on each type of food.

Major Lloyd George: As the reply contains a number of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the information:


Imported Foods on which a subsidy was subsequently paid
Customs Duty paid during year ended 31st March, 1951



£


Butter
2,244,000


Cheese
558,000


Cooking Fat
209,000 (a)


Eggs (Shell)
799,000


Flour
95,000


Margarine
921,000 (a)


Meat (carcase)
1,182,000


Meat (canned corned)
1,036,000


Sugar
3,020,000


Tea
42,000



10,106,000


NOTE


(a) Duty charged on imported vegetable oils from which subsidised margarine and cooking fat were manufactured.

Subsidies

Mr. E. Fernyhough: asked the Minister of Food if he will delay reducing the food subsidies until such time as the


proposed legislation to improve retirement pensions, sickness benefit and unemployment benefit has been introduced and taken effect.

Major Lloyd George: I cannot at present add to the statement of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer when opening his Budget.

Mr. Fernyhough: Does not the right hon. and gallant Gentleman think there is something mean and despicable and dishonest in allowing food prices to rise, on reducing the subsidies, before the compensation which the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised in his Budget speech becomes effective? Has the right hon. and gallant Gentleman no qualms of conscience about the noble Lord who sits in another place and about what he said during the General Election? Will he not meet my wishes in this matter and thus avoid undeserved hardship being imposed on millions?

Major Lloyd George: All I can say is that we shall, of course, do what we possibly can to see that, as far as timing is concerned, the changes are made so as to cause the least possible hardship to the housewife.

Captain Richard Pilkington: Were not increases in price made under the last Government without any compensation whatsoever?

Mr. Herbert Morrison: With reference to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Ferny-hough), could the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say whether this is a matter of Departmental administration or whether it is one of those matters of policy for which the Lord President of the Council and not the Minister of Food is responsible?

Major Lloyd George: I can only say that it has been found impossible to introduce changes in social benefits under a period of several months, as the last Administration indeed discovered.

Mr. Morrison: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman answer the question of who is responsible for this matter of high policy, on the point put to him by my hon. Friend—is it himself, as Minister of Food, or is it the supervising Minister, the Lord President?

Major Lloyd George: That does not arise out of the Question, but I will tell the right hon. Gentleman—I am responsible.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: As this is a matter of first importance to the aged, the sick and the unemployed of this country, would the Minister give an undertaking now that these two things will be synchronised?

Major Lloyd George: The right hon. Lady must realise that it is impossible to synchronise them. I repeat what I said, that we shall do everything we possibly can to bring the changes as near as possible in order to cause the least hardship.

Miss Elaine Burton: asked the Minister of Food (1) why he proposes to withdraw the food subsidy from sugar, tea, fats and bacon yet not from butter;
(2) what will be the price of sugar, tea, fats and bacon when the food subsidy has been withdrawn.

Major Lloyd George: I will, with permission, answer these Questions together.

Miss Burton: On a point of order. I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker. Is it not becoming rather customary for Ministers to try to answer together Questions which have no relevance one to another? I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether Question 19 and Question 20 seem the same to you. They ask two different things: one asks for a statement on prices and the other for a reason, and I should have thought they would have been answered separately.

Mr. Speaker: I think we had better hear the answer. Perhaps it may manage to combine the two matters.

Major Lloyd George: I think the hon. Lady will realise that the answer is quite relevant to the two Questions and that they can be taken together, because the hon. Lady asks why it is proposed to withdraw the food subsidy from certain foods, and—

Mr. A. C. Manuel: On a point of order. I should like your Ruling, on this, Mr. Speaker. As I understand the position, as to whether a Minister


answers Questions together or not is at the discretion of the Member putting down the Question. If permission is refused, is it not then incumbent upon the Minister to answer each Question separately?

Mr. Speaker: I think it is always better for the dispatch of business to have the answer, and then, if it is unsatisfactory, to allow a supplementary question to elucidate the matter.

Major Lloyd George: I think that the hon. Lady will realise, when she hears the answer, that it is quite fair.
Apart from tea, as announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, no proposals as suggested have been made.

Miss Burton: That seems to be the answer to Question 19. Are we to assume from the answer that the subsidies are not to be withdrawn from sugar, fats, bacon and butter?

Major Lloyd George: No, the hon. Lady cannot assume anything of the kind. As she must know, when we have a ceiling above which we must not go, on what particular commodity the price is raised is a matter which depends entirely upon the Minister, but, as I have said, no such proposals have yet been made.

Miss Burton: Are any of the subsidies on any of these foods to be withdrawn?

Major Lloyd George: The hon. Lady will really have to wait and see. As my right hon. Friend said, from time to time announcements will be made. But no such proposals as she has suggested have been made.

Mrs. Mann: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman tell us when we may expect the worst—and could he tell us without referring to the grievous burden laid upon his shoulders by the late Government?

Miss Burton: May I ask for an answer to Question 20? I am not being obstructive, but I do submit that I have not had an answer to that yet.

Major Lloyd George: The hon. Lady was asking something which it is impossible to answer. She asked me to tell her what the prices will be as a consequence of certain proposals, which, as I have said, have not been made.

Mr. Chapman: Since the Minister tells us that these prices will rise from time to time, could he not give us an assurance that the rises will synchronise with the increase in social benefits?

Major Lloyd George: As I said in answer to a previous Question, we shall do everything we possibly can to bring the changes as near together as possible.

Miss Burton: I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Flour Improvers

Dr. Barnett Stross: asked the Minister of Food what further progress has been made as to the replacement of the agene treatment of flour by a substance which is less toxic.

Major Lloyd George: As the reply to this Question is rather long I propose, with the hon. Member's permission, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the reply:
On 27th January, 1950, a scientific committee under the Chairmanship of Sir Wilson Jameson, then chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, comprising representatives of the Ministries of Food and Health, the Medical Research Council and the milling industry, issued a statement regarding the possible toxic effects of the commonly used flour improver, nitrogen trichloride, known as agene. The committee was unable to find any evidence that agenised flour is toxic to man. Nevertheless, in view of its deleterious effect when fed in large quantities to certain animals it was felt that the use of agene should be discontinued.
The committee was, however, satisfied that if a loaf acceptable to the general public is to be produced in this country some form of "improver" or improving process must continue to be used to safeguard its baking qualities.
At the time of the committee's report the most suitable improver appeared to be chlorine dioxide. But other substances and processes are in use or in prospect and it is clearly desirable that they should all be examined with the object of determining those which will best serve the national interest.
Accordingly, as I stated in the House of Commons on 19th November, 1951, a joint examination of such alternatives is being undertaken by the Departments concerned and the Medical Research Council in association with scientific and technical representatives of the milling and baking industries. This examination includes

(i) studies of the relative effects of the different methods of improvement on the constituents of the loaf, which are being


undertaken by the Medical Research Council and also by the Research Association of British Flour Millers;
(ii) assessments of the acceptability of the resulting bread from commercial trials, which are being made by an independent panel sponsored by the Ministry of Food; and
(iii) investigations of various types of machinery and processes designed to effect improvement.

In view of the wide scope of these various investigations it appears unlikely that they can be completed before the end of the current year.
In the meantime the public can be assured that no evidence has been found to indicate that the present methods of treatment of flour, including agenisation, which have been in operation in this and other countries for many years are injurious to human health.

Dr. Stross: asked the Minister of Food whether his attention has been drawn to the toxic action of methionine sulphoximine, a product of the action of agene on flour; and to what extent it inhibits the action of cholinesterase in brain tissue.

Major Lloyd George: As regards the first part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave him on 19th November, 1951.
As regards the second part of the Question, I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the issue of "Nature" of 8th March, 1952, in which the complex scientific considerations involved are discussed.

Dr. Stross: While thanking the Minister for his courtesy and kindness in sending me a copy of "Nature," which I have read, may I ask him if he is aware that we suspect that any inhibition of the action of cholinesterase brings about forgetfulness and faulty memory? Can he tell the House whether it is this, namely, the use of agene in flour, that accounts for the Government's forgetfulness in regard to their promises at the General Election?

Major Lloyd George: I can say definitely, speaking for myself, that I have no experience whatever of this stimulant to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

Bulk Purchase

Mr. J. A. Sparks: asked the Minister of Food the quantity and value of each group of commodities bought in bulk from overseas by his Department in the

year 1951; and to what extent he estimated that they will be varied in 1952.

Major Lloyd George: In reply to the first part of the Question, I will, with permission, circulate a table of figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
I cannot yet forecast the comparable figures for 1952.

Mr. Sparks: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that for many years the Conservative Party have campaigned against bulk purchase as being the principal cause of the rise in the cost of living? Will he, therefore, explain why he continues that policy?

Major Lloyd George: If the hon. Gentleman puts a Question down. All I have done is to answer the Question on the Paper.

Following is the information:


IMPORTS OF FOOD AND FEEDING STUFFS BY THE MINISTRY OF FOOD, IN 1951, ACCORDING TO MINISTRY RECORDS


Commodity Group
1951 Imports


'000 tons
£'000 f.o.b.


Cereals
7,280
203,316


Sugar and glucose
2,236
89,790


Meat and bacon
763
117,116


Milk products and eggs
646
143,308


Oilseeds, oils and fats
1,773
157,591


All other food and feed
1,546
96,003


Total
14,244
807,124

Bakers and Confectioners (Fat Allocation)

Mr. C. R. Hobson: asked the Minister of Food if he will restore the cuts in the fat allocation to master bakers and confectioners from 42 per cent. of datum to 75 per cent. of datum in view of the hardship suffered particularly to small businesses.

Major Lloyd George: No, Sir. The additional imports that would be required make the proposal impracticable. But I have found it possible to give some easement to small bakers and confectioners by arranging that those with an allocation before the cut of up to 3 cwt. per 8-week period will be exempt from the cut, while those with an allocation of over 3 cwt. will receive at least 3 cwt.

Mr. Hobson: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that his reply is a very favourable one, and that it will now be possible for small bakers to extend their business without sacrificing the quality of their products?

Major Lloyd George: I think so, and I am very glad that it should be so. I only wish that we could have done more.

Backyard Pig Production

Mr. Gerald Nabarro: asked the Minister of Food how many licences to slaughter pigs were issued by his Department to backyard pig owner consumers during 12 months ended on the latest convenient date; how many pigs were so slaughtered; whether he will now relax the appropriate Regulations in order to stimulate backyard pig production and increase food supplies; and whether he will make a statement.

Major Lloyd George: In the year to 29th February, 1952, 381,358 licences were issued to slaughter 387,424 pigs. After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the Regulations do not go beyond what is necessary in the public interest, and do not deter those who want to keep pigs.

Mr. Nabarro: Would my right hon. and gallant Friend not be prepared to give more ample recognition to this noble and prolific character, the backyard pig, which is capable of making a much greater contribution to household food supplies than it is making at present? The reason it is not making a greater contribution is because of my right hon. and gallant Friend's restrictions on its slaughter.

Major Lloyd George: I cannot quite accept the latter part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question. As a matter of fact, we do recognise the importance of the part that the backyard pig producers play, because, of the total number of pigs in this country, one-eighth belong to the backyard pig producers, and we do everything we possibly can, in the circumstances that obtain today, to assist them.

Retail Butchers (Licensing System)

Mr. F. Willey: asked the Minister of Food how far he proposes to make changes in the system of the licensing of retail butchers.

Major Lloyd George: I have invited the butchery trade to let me have their views, which I wish to consider before reaching a decision on this subject.

Tea (Old Age Pensioners)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that the proposal to withdraw completely the subsidy from tea will cause the greatest hardship to old age pensioners; and if he will therefore consider the granting of some concession to the old people.

Major Lloyd George: I would refer the hon. Member to the prospective changes in National Assistance and pensions announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in opening his Budget. These measures will be specifically designed to help old age pensioners.

Mr. Hamilton: Does not the Minister realise that some of the price increases have already taken place, and that the old age pensioners are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a standard of living at all commensurate with what they are entitled to; and would he give a guarantee that at any rate the tea subsidy will not be taken off before some kind of assistance is given to the old age pensioner?

Major Lloyd George: I can only repeat what I said before. Everything possible will be done to see that these are synchronised. At least we can say that some attempt is being made to compensate for the disadvantages.

Mr. Douglas Jay: In view of the obvious importance of tea to the old age pensioner, can the Minister explain why the Government selected tea for the complete withdrawal of the subsidy? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer.") Had the Government no grounds for doing this at all; and if they had grounds, can the Minister explain what they were?

Major Lloyd George: We had plenty of grounds, and at the proper time I am prepared to explain them. As I pointed out before, the commodities upon which the Government decide depend, as in the right hon. Gentleman's time, on the circumstances, and I advise the right hon. Gentleman to wait and see what the position is like.

Mrs. Barbara Castle: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that when the increase in old age pensions takes place, it will be retrospective, on the same basis as the doctors' increase?

Jam (Minimum Fruit Standard)

Mr. Percy Wells: asked the Minister of Food if he will raise the minimum fruit content of jam manufactured for sale in this country to not less than 50 per cent.

Major Lloyd George: The minimum fruit standards for jam are being reviewed and a decision will be announced as soon as possible.

Mr. Wells: Is the Minister aware that if he did this he would be able to cut the allocation to manufacturers by about 25 per cent., assist the horticultural industry, stop the wastage of fruit and give the housewives better value for their money?

Major Lloyd George: That is what is being looked at at the moment.

Decayed Vegetables and Fruit (Sale)

Mrs. Mann: asked the Minister of Food what steps are taken by his Department to prevent greengrocers from including decayed vegetables and fruit in their sales to housewives.

Major Lloyd George: The remedy is in the housewife's own hands. She can and should refuse to buy any such produce.

Mrs. Mann: Could the Minister say, then, where the housewife can get vegetables that are fresh? Does he not think that it would be very easy to insist that greengrocers, like butchers, should not be permitted to sell for human consumption that which is unfit?

Major Lloyd George: I should have thought the hon. Lady would not have gone to the same shop twice, if that were so. Surely it is in the hands of the housewives. I cannot imagine a greengrocer staying very long in business if the products he sells are as the hon. Lady says they are.

Mrs. Mann: That is how they have been keeping in business.

Home-Killed Meat (Chilled Room Storage)

Mr. Anthony Hurd: asked the Minister of Food how far provision for refrigeration is being made at the new Government slaughterhouses to test the economy of reserving in cold store part of the increasingly heavy supplies of fat cattle and lambs marketed in the autumn at the end of the grazing season.

Major Lloyd George: No express provision is being made, but I intend that experiments should be made in adapting the chilled room accommodation.

Mr. Hurd: Does my right hon. and gallant Friend not agree that it is high time somebody started to tackle this problem so that we make the best use of home-killed meat throughout the year?

Major Lloyd George: Steps have already been taken to this effect, as I mentioned in my reply.

Mr. Maurice Webb: Would the Minister give the House some information about the nature of these experiments? As he knows, this is an important matter. It is essential to try to even out the supplies of meat, if we can, over the whole year. We are all embarrassed by this flush in the autumn. Could he give the House some details of the experiments that are taking place?

Major Lloyd George: I could not do so in question and answer. The right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that this is an extremely difficult matter for a country which is not equipped for this kind of industry, but we are, and have been for some time, seeing if we can possibly do something to avoid the flush which we get in the autumn.

Cheese

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Food to what extent he is arranging to buy cheese from Canada this year.

Major Lloyd George: I regret that, so far as we can see at present, our balance of payments difficulties make it impossible for us to spend any dollars on Canadian cheese this year. The Canadian Government have been informed.

Mr. Hurd: If it is a matter of taking some produce from Canada this year,


could we not tell the Canadian Government that we would much prefer to have cheese than apples?

Dr. Stross: Will the Minister bear in mind that the best source of calcium in the nation's diet comes from cheese, milk and eggs; that the cheese ration is very inadequate at present; and will he do all he can to increase it?

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Food how much milk was used for cheese making in 1950 and 1951; and how much he proposes to allocate for this purpose in 1952.

Major Lloyd George: One hundred and twenty-six million gallons in 1950 and 103 million gallons in 1951. I hope to make a little more cheese for the ration in 1952 than in 1951, but this is dependent on the season.

Sausages

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Food what steps he is taking to improve the quality and quantity of meat sausages; and to what extent the milk powder elements are now eliminated.

Major Lloyd George: The supply of manufacturing meat does not at present permit any increase in the meat content of pork or beef sausages or in their quantity. The inclusion of a limited proportion of milk powder in pork and beef sausages is still permitted and many manufacturers are glad to adopt this method of increasing the supply of sausages for the public.

Mr. Nabarro: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend not aware that the pig population of the United Kingdom has increased by 50 per cent. in the last 15 months? Where is the extra pork going to? Why must we continue so to use these milk by-products? Cannot we have a decent sausage again?

Major Lloyd George: My hon. Friend asks me where this pig meat is going to. I can give him one destination and that is the increased bacon ration.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROADS

Parking, London

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Minister of Transport when he proposes to introduce regulations enforcing unilateral parking in Sackville Street.

Mr. J. Langford-Holt: asked the Minister of Transport if he is now in a position to state whether he will introduce unilateral parking in streets where parking on both sides of the street at present limits traffic to a single line in one direction.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. John Maclay): I am still considering proposals for unilateral waiting in certain streets in London, including Sackville Street. I hope to reach an early decision.

Mr. Shepherd: Can my hon. Friend say how long we have to wait for this very obvious reform? Has it not been clear for many years that this reform was needed, and why is it necessary to go on waiting year after year for it?

Mr. Maclay: I realise that this matter has been under consideration for a very considerable time, but the report I have received raises some very difficult questions, such as access to premises, and I feel that one must be quite certain about what one is doing before one does it.

Mr. Langford-Holt: Is my hon. Friend aware that the stoppages that occur in these streets are a very real source not only of irritation but of high cost to transport users, and if he is not sure on that point will he look at the report of the London Passenger Transport Board?

Mr. Maclay: I can assure my hon. Friend that I am very well aware of it, and I am myself constantly irritated by it.

Mr. Langford-Holt: asked the Minister of Transport what steps he takes to make known to motorists in what streets in London cars may be parked without lights at night.

Mr. Maclay: I have authorised the erection of a sign "No lights required" at those street parking places where the Commissioner of Police has given his consent to vehicles standing without lights. I understand that the motoring organisations have made lists of such parking places available to their members.

Mr. Langford-Holt: Is my hon. Friend aware that this matter has been a source of great irritation to the Metropolitan


Police, who in the dark hours spend a great deal of their time chasing cars away from streets where people did not know they were not allowed to park them?

Mr. Maclay: I hope that particular source of irritation will very soon be removed.

Colonel Sir Leonard Ropner: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Metropolitan Police are administering this matter very reasonably, and can he give an assurance that this Question will not put them on their toes and lead them to institute prosecutions in respect of streets where they have hitherto allowed cars to be parked without lights?

Bus Shelters (Rural Districts)

Colonel Ralph Clarke: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will consider taking steps to give powers to road authorities which will enable them to contribute to the erection of bus shelters in rural districts.

Mr. Maclay: I will bear this point in mind if and when legislation on the general question of bus shelters is prepared.

Learner Licences

Mr. G. Williams: asked the Minister of Transport if he will introduce legislation to limit the number of learner licences which can be taken out successively by the same person.

Mr. Maclay: No, Sir. Such a restriction would be of doubtful advantage and would involve serious administrative difficulties.

Mr. Williams: Is the Minister aware that anyone can continue to take out a licence at three-monthly intervals, and that motorcyclisits do not even have to have anybody with them? That is driving to the danger of the public, and something ought to be done about it.

Mr. Maclay: I realise that there is substance in what my hon. Friend says, but I assure him that the administrative difficulties and the problems which would arise from adopting the suggestion are very great indeed.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: Why is there any administrative difficulty in saying, for example, that, after having two or three

learner licences, a person who has failed to pass the test should not have any more learner licences?

Mr. Maclay: That is not quite the way the Question is put. Problems would arise if we decided that another learner licence was to be refused when the person applied again at the end of the three months, not having passed the test, for he might have been ill or been abroad in the meantime. Many other difficulties would arise out of the suggestion.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT

Fare Stages, London

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Transport on what date he referred to the Central Transport Consultative Committee the alteration of London fare stages and fares in relation thereto.

Mr. Maclay: The date was 11th March, 1952.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Will the hon. Gentleman ask this Committee to "Hurry along, please," and stop the victimisation of the travelling public in the London area that is going on?

Mr. Maclay: I understand that the Committee are dealing with the matter as fast as they can.

Mr. Ernest Davies: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the report will be published by the Committee, and whether the House will be given an opportunity of considering it?

Mr. Maclay: I understand that the report will be submitted to me, and that it will be normal practice for it to be made available.

Shift Workers (Cheap Fares)

Mr. F. Beswick: asked the Minister of Transport if he will refer to the Central Transport Consultative Committee the action of the British Transport Commission in withdrawing the workmen's cheap fare facilities from shift workers.

Mr. Maclay: I would refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine) and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Air


Commodore Harvey) and the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Hastings) on Monday, 24th March, of which I am sending him copies.

Mr. Beswick: Is the hon. Gentleman referring me to that part of the answer in which he said that it would not be proper for him to refer the question of fares to the Consultative Committee, or is he referring me to that part of the answer in which he said that the Consultative Committee were in fact considering this matter?

Mr. Maclay: To both parts, both of which are correct.

Mr. Somerville Hastings: Does the hon. Gentleman realise how very hard hit are the people who were bombed out of London and compelled to live in the suburbs, and who now find that their fares to work are more than double what they were?

Mr. Maclay: I have noted that very carefully, but the hon. Member is attacking his own Act.

Captain Robert Ryder: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that not only do Londoners have to travel much further to their places of work but in London, where the Transport Commission has a complete monopoly, the cost of travel per mile is considerably higher than in the Provinces, where transport undertakings have not a monopoly?

Mr. Beswick: Is the Minister not aware that he is now distorting this Act for the purpose of sheltering behind it? Is he not further aware that within the Act provision was made for this Consultative Committee, and that there is no reason at all why he should not refer these matters to that committee; and can he state the grounds upon which he was advised that he could not so refer these matters to them?

Mr. Maclay: Where the transport tribunal has decided a matter of principle, I am advised that it would be wrong for the Minister to refer that question of principle to the Transport Tribunal; otherwise what is the Transport Tribunal for?

Mr. James Callaghan: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us in what section

of the Transport Act the British Transport Commission are authorised to withdraw workmen's cheap fare facilities for shift workers?

Mr. Maclay: The whole question was, under the Act, put to the Tribunal.

Commission (Steel Allocation)

Mr. Austen Albu: asked the Minister of Transport what is the value of the allocation of steel so far made to the British Transport Commission for each of the periods of the year.

Mr. Maclay: It is not the practice to disclose particular allocations.

Mr. Albu: Can the Minister say what will be the effect on the cost of steel used by the British Transport Commission of the increases in steel prices which are about to take place?

Mr. Maclay: That is another question.

Mr. Sparks: As the Minister is responsible to the British Transport Commission for fulfilling their allocation of steel, why has he completely failed to do so?

Mr. Maclay: I simply do not accept that for one minute. My hon. Friend and I have worked very hard to see that the British Transport Commission get their fair and proper share of the allocation during the period when other priorities must have consideration.

Mr. Sparks: Is the Minister aware that one of his colleagues sitting beside him said in the House a few days ago that the Ministry were responsible to the British Transport Commission for their steel allocation?

Railway Superannuitants

Captain Ryder: asked the Minister of Transport what representations he has received from the railway superannuitants regarding their pensions; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Maclay: I have received representations urging me to increase the pensions of railway superannuitants. I am giving them my most careful consideration but am not yet in a position to make a statement.

Captain Ryder: In view of the statement made by the Chancellor of the


Exchequer that consideration was being given to increasing the pensions of other Government servants, will my hon. Friend bear in mind that this section has been very hard hit by repeated increases in the cost of living?

Mr. Maclay: I realise the great difficulties of certain railway superannuitants, and I am considering this matter as carefully as I can.

Mr. A. Edward Davies: Is there any argument why we should not give some consideration to these men, who have served the country well, at the same time as other public servants in local government and elsewhere are having some adjustment? Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that many of these men, who have contributed to their pensions, are having a very thin time and have bad one for some years?

Mr. Maclay: The hon. Member will realise from my earlier replies that I am giving this most careful consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions — GREEK CHILDREN (REPATRIATION)

Mr. W. M. F. Vane: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what further information he has received from the United Nations organisation on the progress of the return of the Greek children kidnapped by the Communists during the guerilla war of 1946–49 and abducted to Communist countries.

The Minister of State (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): My right hon. Friend has received no information from the United Nations on this question since it was discussed at the last General Assembly. In fact, 470 children have been returned from Yugoslavia since 1950, but not a single child has been repatriated from countries within the Soviet orbit.

Mr. Vane: Can my right hon. and learned Friend think of any other steps which he can usefully take in order to hasten the return of these children so monstrously abducted by the Communists?

Mr. Lloyd: The United Nations Standing Committee on Greek children did try to call a meeting of representatives of all the harbouring States during the last session of the General Assembly.

Only Czechoslovakia sent a representative to that meeting and, in the circumstances, it is difficult to see what further steps can be taken; but the position of Her Majesty's Government is to give complete support to the Resolution that was passed by the General Assembly.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRIESTE (DISTURBANCES)

Mr. John Parker: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps have been taken to protect the Slovene and Autonomist groups in Trieste during the recent Italian Irredentist riots.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No special steps were taken to protect Slovenes and "Autonomists" during the recent disorders in Trieste. Such persons are not segregated from the rest of the population of Trieste.

Mr. Parker: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind that the more concessions we make to the Italians, the more they are likely to ask for?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that comment is called for upon this answer. So far as the Question is concerned, the police force in Trieste endeavour to give the same degree of protection to all persons of all nationalities.

Oral Answers to Questions — ICELANDIC FISHING REGULATIONS

Miss Irene Ward: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the action he has taken with the Government of Iceland arising out of the decision to prohibit our trawlers fishing in coastal waters previously open to them.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Younger) on 27th March. This matter is under consideration, and I am not in a position to make a statement at present.

Miss Ward: Can my right hon. and learned Friend say when he thinks he will be in a position to make a statement? Have the strongest representations been made to the Icelandic Government?

Mr. Lloyd: I quite appreciate that this is a matter of great importance. It is a matter upon which I myself made certain representations before the new steps were taken. We are in discussion with the Icelandic Government at present on the matter. I can assure my hon. Friend that it is one to which we attach very great importance.

Miss Ward: Would not my right hon. and learned Friend say that we did have a lot of difficulty with the Icelandic Government, and as this matter obviously affects our fishing interests in this country, is it not about time that the Icelandic Government co-operated with us?

Mr. Lloyd: We are in the friendliest possible relations with the Icelandic Government, and I would not endorse any such comment as my hon. Friend has made with regard to that matter. I am still hopeful that this matter can be settled by friendly negotiations and, in the circumstances, I prefer to say nothing more at the present time.

Mr. Kenneth Younger: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind that, quite apart from any question of the legality of these proposed regulations—I do not want to stress that in any way—it is very important we should try to get the lines of limitation drawn at the right point, and that there may be a question of negotiation here, quite apart from the other legal questions?

Mr. Lloyd: I heartily agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I would remind him that the new line affects Icelandic trawlers just as much as British trawlers.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH PROTESTANT CHURCH, SEVILLE (ATTACK)

Professor Sir Douglas: Savory asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) whether he has now received a reply to the note which he addressed to the Spanish Government with regard to the attack on the Protestant Church in Seville; and what restitution has been made for the damage done;
(2) whether, in view of the fuller details now available, he will make further representations to the Spanish Government concerning the burning of the communion

table, committed during the attack on the British-owned Protestant Church in Seville; and if he will call for action against the attackers.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The Note already presented by Her Majesty's Ambassador at Madrid requested the Spanish Government to ensure that the persons responsible for the outrage should be properly punished. The Spanish Government's reply which has now been received regrets the incident and states that the matter will be dealt with according to law. Two persons believed to have participated in the occurrence were arrested by the Spanish police on the spot. No restitution has yet been offered for the damage done.

Sir D. Savory: In Question No. 55 I ask the Minister whether he will make further representations in view of the details which have now come to light, namely, that the hymn books and Prayer Books were piled up on the Holy Table, covered with an inflammatory liquid and set on fire; and, according to the report of an eye-witness, which I have in my hand, an attempt was made to burn the clergyman himself, with shouts of "The Protestants are now finished"?

Mr. Lloyd: At the time the original representations were made, a full account was available of what was alleged to have occurred. It was pointed out to the Spanish Government that this incident was considered regrettable by Her Majesty's Government, and the Spanish Government have agreed that it was a regrettable incident.

Mr. E. Fletcher: Does the Minister of State agree that it is not enough for the Spanish Government to regret it? This is not a mere isolated incident. How can the Franco Government expect to be treated as a civilised Government when incidents of this kind take place. Will the Government make the strongest possible representations about a repetition of this kind of incident?

Mr. Lloyd: It is necessary to keep a certain balance with regard to this incident. There is not one scrap of evidence to indicate that the Spanish Government were in any sense implicated in it. The view of Her Majesty's Government is that this was the act of a certain number of irresponsible people. The Spanish Government have stated that they are


going to take legal proceedings against certain people, and it would be very much better to leave the matter there.

Oral Answers to Questions — MISSIONARY, TIBET (DETENTION)

Mr. William A. Steward: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that Mr. Geoffrey Bull, a British missionary in Tibet, has been imprisoned by the Chinese in Chungking since 1950; and what steps Her Majesty's Government are taking to ensure the release of Mr. Bull.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Yes, Sir. Mr. Bull was detained by the Chinese forces during operations in Tibet on 19th October, 1950. Her Majesty's Chargéd' Affaires at Peking has made representations to the Chinese authorities on no less than eleven different occasions. All attempts to secure his release or to obtain access to or information about him have however proved unavailing. So far as I am aware no charges have been preferred against him. Every effort will continue to be made through all possible channels to obtain his release and repatriation.

Mr. Steward: Will the Minister consider asking the Indian Government for their assistance in this matter?

Mr. Lloyd: That is a suggestion which I will certainly bear in mind.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS CATERING

Mrs. Eirene White: asked the hon. Member for Woolwich, West, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, what consultations were held with the staff before the recent changes in catering arrangements in the House of Commons were introduced.

Mr. Steward: None, Sir.

Mrs. White: Can the hon. Gentleman explain to the House why it was that the Staff Sub-Committee of the Kitchen Committee held no consultations with the representatives of the staff in view of the fairly extensive changes which were being made in their conditions of work?

Mr. Steward: The Kitchen Committee alone are responsible to the House for

decisions as to policy, which is quite different from conditions of service, upon which consultations always take place.

Mr. Gibson: Is it not completely contrary to all industrial practice in this country that this kind of thing should happen without consultation with the representatives of the staff? Should that not have occurred

Mr. Steward: The changes in catering arrangements were very carefully considered by the Kitchen Committee as a matter of policy and in the interests of economy. The staff were informed of the Committee's decision.

Mrs. White: Will the hon. Gentleman in future take into account the speeches which are made by hon. Members on both sides of the House concerning the desirability of joint consultation in industry, and as the staff in the Palace of Westminster are not organised on a trade union basis, as I believe they are in Buckingham Palace, will he agree that he has a responsibility to see that the best practices of industrial consultation are carried out here?

Mr. Steward: I will draw the attention of my Committee to the observations of hon. Members, and take the Committee's instructions.

Dr. Summerskill: As good catering depends to a large extent upon good service, can the hon. Gentleman say how he can divorce policy from the conditions of service?

Captain Charles Waterhouse: Is it not a fact that the Refreshment Department is losing a great deal of money, which has to be borne or refunded by the taxpayers, and is it not incumbent on the Kitchen Committee and this House to do everything they can to reduce that loss?

Sir Albert Braithwaite: asked the hon. Member for Woolwich, West, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, what losses were made in the Members' dining room, in the Public rooms, and in the Press Rooms, respectively, in 1951; how much was paid to the staff during the Recess in 1951; and how far there were any takings in the periods of Parliamentary Recess in 1951.

Mr. Steward: These figures are approximate. For the Members' rooms the loss was £8,400, for the staff canteen £1,900, for the public rooms, £7,500, for the Press rooms £3,700, a total of £21,500. The actual figure was £21,488.
During the Recess period, 1951, the figure for staff wages and meals was £18,252, and the gross takings were £3,901.

Mr. Beswick: Can the hon. Gentleman give the figures for comparative losses as between the Press rooms and the Members' rooms, for example, on a per capita basis?

Mr. Steward: That would be very difficult without notice.

Dr. Horace King: Will the hon. Gentleman give the corresponding figure for the Members' Tea Room?

Mr. Steward: The total amount for the Members' rooms is £8,400 and, speaking from memory, £1,700 of that represents the Members' Tea Room.

Orders of the Day — POST OFFICE AND TELEGRAPH (MONEY) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.30 p.m.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. David Gammans): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
As the House knows, this is a Bill which has to be laid before the House from time to time to provide the Post Office with the money which it requires for capital development. The last time that a similar Bill was presented was in March, 1950, when £75 million was asked for. We are asking for the same amount this time, and so far as we can judge in the present fluid circumstances of capital development, it is expected that the unspent balance of the previous Bill, amounting to £23 million, and the money which we are now asking the House to provide, will last the Post Office until the end of the financial year 1953–54.
Normally, the Second Reading of the Post Office and Telegraph (Money) Bill is an occasion in the House not only to consider capital development, but also to discuss the operations of the Post Office as a whole. Before I come to the details of the proposed developments there are one or two general remarks which I should like to make.
Before I had any special responsibility for the Post Office I suppose that, like most hon. Members in this House, I largely took its operations for granted. I had a sense of national pride in the Post Office as being a very typically British institution. I had the feeling that our postal services were not as good as they were before the war, but there was not really very much wrong with the telegraph service except that occasionally one got rather annoyed waiting for a reply from "trunks" or "toll." I regarded the average postman as being rather a good chap, and thought that by and large the standard of service in the average Post Office was nothing much to grumble about.
Since I have had some responsibility for the Post Office, three things have struck me very forcibly. The first is the extraordinary and quite illogical ramifications for which the Post Office is responsible.


It is quite reasonable that the Post Office should be responsible for Her Majesty's mails, but there is no overwhelming reason why the Post Office should be responsible for running telephones and telegraphs. In fact, in some countries of the world they are run by private enterprise.
In addition, the Post Office runs a very extensive banking system in the Post Office Savings Bank, issues every conceivable form of licence from dog licences to private brewers' licences, pays widows' and old age pensions and family allowances, is responsible for preventing the evasion of wireless and television licences, and generally takes on every job that no other Government Department seems to want.
On reading the Post Office Guide, I was very interested and somewhat surprised to find that until recently a gentleman who was unable to find his way home could go to the nearest Post Office and ask to be taken there by special messenger. In fact, he could post himself home. That service, unfortunately, had to be discontinued, but I am glad to know, as I am sure hon. Members will, that even now bees, leeches and silkworms can be sent by post, also in theory can dogs and cows provided that they are of a docile disposition and have a rope around their neck. No Government Department comes into such intimate and constant contact with the general public. We employ nearly half the Civil Service, and when all these facts are taken into consideration I feel that the whole Post Office does not do too bad a job.
May I take this opportunity of inviting hon. Members on all sides of the House who wish to see something of Post Office work to do so not only in their own constituencies but here in London. Every head postmaster and telephone manager in the constituencies will only be too glad to see the Member representing that constituency, and here in London we have a few things to show. We have one of the largest and most valuable stamp collections in the world, the unique Post Office railway, which runs 6½ miles underground in London, the largest sorting office in the world at Mount Pleasant, which handles three million letters a day, the travelling Post Office vans and also the largest cable ship in the world, the

"Monarch," which has just been lent on charter to the Americans and is earning us valuable dollars, and which, in the summer, is to renew part of the Atlantic cable.
The second thing which struck me very forcibly about the Post Office is the great pride which the average Post Office worker has in his job. It is something which has been acquired slowly over the centuries. The letters "O.H.M.S." means something more than an envelope containing a demand for Income Tax. The emblem "Royal Mail," which appears on various mail vans all over the country, and which I have seen flying as pennants from ships all over the world, is, to Post Office workers, what the colours are to a regiment.
What has struck me is that almost all the men and women whom I have had the chance to interview on retirement from the Post Office always said the same thing, that if they had their time over again they would join the Post Office once more. It is very refreshing to find, in negotiations with the Post Office trade unions, that we can start negotiations from the common ground that the Post Office exists for the public and not the public for the Post Office. There is no syndicalism in the Post Office.
I had a somewhat amusing experience when I had been Assistant Postmaster-General for a very few weeks. I met one old lady in South Wales who was nearly 80 years of age and who has been delivering letters in a Welsh valley for nearly 50 years. She told me that very often she had to walk four or five miles through the snow to deliver a solitary letter, which might be a circular, to a lonely farm. I said to her, "It must be a very great temptation to leave it over until the next day." She rounded on me and said, "Young man"—with that I was flattered—"you have not been very long in the Post Office, or you would not say a thing like that even as a joke."
The third thing which struck me is that the Post Office has been very fortunate in divorcing itself from party politics. I suppose an experienced politician could bring party politics even to the reading of a bill of lading, but it would not be easy to do it in a discussion on the Post Office. The truth is that this great organisation has been built up over


many years by a series of Postmaster-Generals, who have added to the responsibility in many directions. My immediate predecessors must have every satisfaction in the recovery which the Post Office made after the war under their administration.
It was Elizabeth I who created the monopoly in the delivery of letters overseas, very largely, I think, for the reason that she wanted to read what her subjects were writing about. James I extended it to the delivery of letters at home, and it was Mr. Gladstone who created the Post Office Savings Bank in 1861 and started the Government annuities which are, in fact, a form of State life insurance. Both Disraeli and Gladstone had a share in the nationalisation of the telegraph, and it was left to a Liberal Government, in 1912, to nationalise the telephones.
The decision to alter the status of Cable and Wireless arose out of action taken by the war Coalition. In other words, with that delightful lack of logic which is so characteristic of British politics, the only people who have not done any nationalisation in this field are the Socialist Party.

Mr. W. R. Williams: When were Cable and Wireless actually transferred to the Post Office?

Mr. Gammans: They were transferred under the last Government but one.
I would not like the House to think from these remarks that I view the future of the Post Office with any complacency. We have very serious problems facing us, and perhaps the chief of them arises out of the Bill which is before us.
Before I come to that matter, there is one other which is causing us very great concern and which I mentioned very briefly in the House a few weeks ago. It is the dramatic rise in the sick rate among Post Office workers. Let me give the House some figures; these are for the non-disabled staff and not for men who were taken on after the war and suffering real disablement. In 1938, the sickness rate was 8.1 days per year for men and 9.3 for women. By 1948, those rates had risen, the 8.1 to 10.9 and the 9.3 to 13.4. In 1950, the figure had gone up even more, to 13.4 and 17.3, respectively. As far as I can gather, the figures are still rising.
Immediately after the war, the average age of the Post Office worker went up. One could expect that, but for the last three years the average age has gone down. The figures of increased sick rate have not reflected themselves in the number of retirements due to ill-health or in the number of deaths. Whatever allowances can be made, the fact remains that we ought to be extremely disturbed by this dramatic rise. I have no doubt that we shall have the full co-operation of the Post Office unions in trying to find some solution to it. Let me try to give some idea of what it means. If we could get the sick rate back to pre-war figures, it would be possible to make a saving of 5,000 men and women on the staff.

Mr. Harry Wallace: Is there not some relationship between the sick rate and the difficulty of recruiting for the Post Office in some parts of the country? I understand that excessive hours worked by members of the staff influence the sick rate. The Minister says he could save 5,000 men and women if the sick rate were back to pre-war figures, but I would point out that there has been very great difficulty in many parts of the country in securing recruits for the Post Office, partly because of low wages. Failure to be able to recruit, and excessive overtime, may have a bearing upon the sickness rate.

Mr. A. Edward Davies: It would assist us in considering this matter if the Assistant Postmaster-General were able to break down the figures a little more and tell us where the incidence is greatest. Is it on the outside staff on special duties, or on the inside staff?

Mr. Gammans: Answering the point raised by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. Wallace), I am not quite sure what was the relevance of his question. There is no great difficulty now over the recruitment of staff, and I cannot see why that should effect the high sick rate. On the point raised by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Edward Davies), I would say that the incidence is fairly general. If he would like the figures broken down into grades and would care to put down a Question, I should be delighted to give him the information.
I would now say a word about the general finances of the Post Office. As the House is aware, the Post Office is financed in quite a different way from any of the ordinary nationalised industries. We pay to the Exchequer all the revenue we collect, and the Post Office draws from the Exchequer the cash required, up to the limit voted by Parliament. Parallel with these ordinary cash transactions, the Post Office keeps commercial accounts where credit is taken for all work and services rendered to other Government Departments. As the House knows, letters are carried at cost price, but public rates are charged for the telephone and telegraph services.
The House ought to know what all that adds up to. In 1950–51 the Post Office took a credit from other Government Departments for no fewer than £24 million, of which £13 million was for telephone services. Up to 1943, the telephone and telegraph services were settled by inter-Departmental payments, but the amounts had to appear in the Estimates of the Departments concerned. From the Post Office point of view we would like to revert to that system. In my opinion, if the head of each Government Department had to account in his Estimates for the amount that was spent on telephones I am not sure whether the bill would come to £13 million a year, as it does now. I must point out that that is a decision which does not rest entirely with the Post Office.
The only other comment I would make on the day-to-day accounts of the Post Office is to point out the effect of the recent wage awards. They were made during the last two years, and they have added no fewer than £28 million to the annual cost of the Post Office. For the year ending 31st March this year, the commercial account surplus of £15 million, for which the right hon. Gentleman opposite budgeted a year ago, will be reduced to £3 million, largely on account of these wage awards. Even with the increased charges which will be levied as a result of the Budget, the estimated surplus on the commercial accounts for the year ending 31st March, 1953, will only be about £7½ million, which, apart from the current year, is as low as it has been for the past 25 years.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: I take it that the reason for the reduction in the surplus is that the pay awards are backdated?

Mr. Gammans: In part, yes, but they have been the chief factor in making it impossible for the Post Office to realise the commercial surplus which the late Government expected a year ago.
Now I will say a word about capital development. It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to explain the Bill in detail. The Bill is very similar to previous Post Office Money Bills, with one small exception. Under Clause 2, the Post Office will be able to finance the capital cost of Savings Bank building in the same way as it finances other capital expenditure of the Post Office. This point has already been brought to the notice of the Public Accounts Committee, which have accepted the expansion recommended in the scope of the Post Office Money Bill.
Of the £75 million provided for in the Bill, it is estimated that £69 million, or 92 per cent., will be devoted to the telephone service, 5 per cent. to the postal service and 3 per cent. to the telegraphs. None of the money can be spent without the express permission of the Treasury. The Post Office is subject to control of capital investment as is every other Government Department. It is estimated that for the next three years one-third of the total Post Office capital expenditure will come on the defence programme. Some of this plant will be useful later for civilian purposes, but for the time being the money spent on defence purposes will be of very little use to the Post Office for ordinary civilian needs.
The chief point I want to make in this debate, compared with which everything else is secondary, is that the sum we are providing today, and are likely to be able to spend in the foreseeable future, is quite inadequate for the new developments which the Post Office would like to undertake, or even for us to be able to guarantee that we can maintain the service at present standards.
I am not suggesting that the Post Office is unique in that respect. Almost every Government Department which serves the public, and most private concerns, would today say the same thing. It is due to the defence position and the need to


restrict capital development because of our economic situation. But, like a large part of British industry, we are living on our reserves, and it is only right that on an occasion like this the House should understand all the implications of that policy.
For one thing, our building programme for the next few years will be drastically cut. As I told the House only last Wednesday, during the next financial year no new buildings scheduled to start in that year will be started except those for defence purposes. On the postal side, many of our buildings are out of date and grossly overcrowded.
The hon. Member for Walthamstow, East, is always raising the question of better accommodation for postal workers and I entirely agree with him, because in many parts of the country conditions are not satisfactory. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to come here today and be able to assure the House that a new building programme was about to be started. To give the House some idea of what the overcrowding is like, I suggest that any hon. Member need only go to the Western District Sorting Office, in Wimpole Street, here in London, during the rush hour to see how hopelessly overcrowded we are on the postal side.
However, it is on the telephone side that the restriction on capital development may have a devastating effect, because what is done or not done now will affect the standard of service we can give the public over the next four or five years. I am glad to say that this country has now become telephone-minded. There are almost twice as many people on the telephone today as there were in 1938. Local calls have gone up by 50 per cent. and trunk calls by 120 per cent. But even if we did not put another person on the phone, we are already reaching a critical situation. Eighty important exchanges are already full and so are over 300 smaller exchanges.
There are about 487,000 people waiting for telephones. Luckily, this is 56,000 better than a year ago but, even so, we can only hope to cater for one-fifth of the people on the waiting list during the next 12 months. I am glad to say that we have been able to do better for the rural areas than was done before the war.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Does that one-fifth apply only to England and Wales, or does the same proportion apply to Scotland?

Mr. Gammans: I am taking the country as a whole, but if the hon. and learned Gentleman would like the figures for Scotland, I shall be delighted to give them to him. Unfortunately, I have every reason to believe that they are no better there than for England.
So far as rural telephones are concerned, 11,000 farmers came on the telephone last year and 1,200 new kiosks were put up. I cannot say that we shall go on at that rate, because those farmers who are now on the telephone are, on the whole, living in remote areas. To provide the telephone for a farmer who is perhaps a mile or a mile and a half away would require a tremendous capital expenditure.
I want to stress this financial problem, because I notice from the letters which hon. Gentlemen send me on behalf of their constituents that they do not always recognise what is entailed in putting someone on the telephone. I often get letters to this effect. "I noticed in an office opposite my house that there were 100 telephones. Why cannot 50 of them be taken out and given to 50 other people who are waiting for the phone?" Unfortunately, it is not as easy as that. Before a new subscriber can go on the telephone his house must be wired and the instrument provided. That is comparatively easy, but four other things are required. First, there has to be a pair of wires between the subscriber's house and the exchange. Then there is the switching apparatus at the exchange itself leading between the exchange, and then the junction circuits. Finally, there has to be a share of the trunk and toll lines.
It is no use providing one of those unless it is possible to provide all. I want to make this quite clear because we shall only be able to do a token amount of new building this year, and without new building it is not possible to extend the telephone service.

Mr. Percy Shurmer: I was in the telephone service for a number of years although, unfortunately, I had to come out of it for certain reasons. I agree with some of the points made by the hon. Gentleman about


the difficulty of putting in a telephone, but is he suggesting that a subscriber could not have a telephone if it were not possible to connect him with both trunk and toll?

Mr. Gammons: It is no good giving a man a telephone unless, as part of the service with which he is supplied, he can get trunk and toll. If we increase the number of subscribers, for the sake of argument, by 1,000, we must increase the number of trunk and toll lines in the same proportion. Otherwise, the subscriber will not get the service he should have.
It is disturbing that we are not doing Any new building this year; or, to put it another way, even supposing that at the moment we were given the green light to go ahead, which we are not, it would be four or five years before that would reflect itself in an improved telephone service for the whole country. The truth is that since the war, so far as the telephone service is concerned, we have only been able to spend about half what should have been spent on that service to cater for the extensions which are in sight. For that reason, I hope that right hon. Gentlemen opposite will agree that there is every credit to the Post Office for having nearly doubled the number of people on the telephone considering the years of war and the difficulties through which we have since passed.

Mr. Ness Edwards: indicated assent.

Mr. Gammons: On the telephone side we have been helped out by the success of the shared service. I find that even now hon. Members do not realise what the shared service is. Every subscriber gets his own number, and only the bell on the instrument of the subscriber who is rung up rings. The only way in which a subscriber knows whether he is on a shared service or not is if the other half is listening or using the phone, and he picks up the instrument and hears them talking.
The position today is that we try to give all the business applicants their own exclusive line, but no fewer than 96,000 business subscribers have volunteered to share as an alternative to getting no line at all. On the residential side, the only people who get exclusive service are

judges of the High Court or of higher rank and Members of Parliament, but only while they remain Members. Everyone else is liable for shared service, including lawyers, editors of newspapers and senior civil servants.

Sir Patrick Spens: And doctors?

Mr. Gammans: Yes, and doctors. There are over 200,000 people today on shared service who would not be on the service at all unless we had been able to bring in this device. Until the introduction of the new rentals, there was only a difference of 11s. 6d. between the rentals of a shared and an exclusive line, but, as the House will be aware, this will be increased as from 1st July.
As regards shared service, I ought to make it clear that nobody who was on exclusive service or who had a telephone before 1st January, 1948, will be expected to share unless he moves from one house to another. So much for the telephone service—a story of great expansion, which is now held up for reasons beyond our control.

Mr. Albert Roberts: Why the discrimination as from 1948?

Mr. Gammons: That was the date when the shared service came in; it had to start some time.
There are one or two things I should like to say about the postal service. Over the past four or five years, the traffic has increased by about 4 or 5 per cent. per year, and now the numbers of letters and packages posted in Great Britain amount to about 25 million a day. Many hon. Members wonder whether we shall ever get back to the penny post and the prewar midnight collection of letters in London. The answer to both of these is, "No." It is best that the House should realise that. The penny post has gone with the pre-war purchasing power of the £, and the midnight collection of letters in London, and the very late collections in other districts, were based upon standards of working on the part of the postal officers which I do not believe either side of the House would accept today.
That late collection meant that many postmen in London, for example, had to come on duty for two periods for an overall period of 16 hours a day. In the interval, the man could go home if


he was able or wanted to, but I do not believe that the House would accept those standards today. To restore deliveries and collections to the pre-war scale, and still maintain the present-day standards of working, would require an additional 10,000 men. It is quite clear that the country could not afford that today.

Mr. Albert Evans: Did the hon. Gentleman say that the penny post would never come back?

Mr. Gammans: "Never" is a very strong thing to say. It would give me great pleasure if I could stand at this Box and say that the penny post was coming hack, but I rather think that the chances are negligible.
Even if we do not get back to pre-war standards, it is as well to remember what the present ones are. Any letter posted before 6.0 p.m. in London is normally delivered by the first post next morning in any part of England and Wales, and any letter posted before 4.15 p.m. should be delivered by the same post next morning in any part of Southern Scotland also.
I know that comparisons are odious, and often misleading, but it is as well to remember that our postal charges compare very favourably with other countries. For example, we charge 4d. for a letter to go from the United Kingdom to the Continent, but the letter coming back from France costs 7.3 pence and 7.8 pence from Switzerland—nearly double. Take our 2½d. letter to the United States. The return postage is 4.3d. Quite apart from this, all our first-class mail to Europe, except to Poland and Iceland, now goes by air, and over a million items are conveyed each week under this scheme.
Now a word about the telegraph service. I wish that I had a brighter story to tell, but the deficit for the year ending 31st March, 1952, will be about £4,200,000. Rather curiously, that is almost the exact sum that it was last year. The truth is, and we must face it, that the public are using the telegraph less and less. The traffic has fallen by approximately 20 per cent. as compared with before the war, partly due, I think, to the fact that there are more people on the telephone and also because of the speed of delivery of our letters. If it is any consolation to the House, almost every other country is losing money on its telegraphs.
There are only two bright things I can say. One is the increase in the greetings telegrams, which counteracts to some extent the fall in other types of telegrams. The other is that the Post Office have been able to switch gradually to a new type of connection, through switching in the offices, which should lead to considerable economies and to greater speed. This, we reckon, will save us about £500,000 a year.
There are many other sides of the Post Office with which I could deal, but I do not propose to say anything today about radio or television, because shortly the House will be getting a White Paper on the subject and there will be a special opportunity for discussion.

Mr. Charles Grey: How soon will the White Paper come out?

Mr. Gammans: I cannot say. The Government have promised that a White Paper will be laid. If the matter were discussed today, I could not give the House very much information.
On the Savings Bank side, all that there is to be said is that for the past three years small savings, as represented by the Savings Bank, National Savings Certificates and Defence Bonds, have been having a rather bad time. Withdrawals have equalled, and sometimes surpassed, the amount of new money invested. Of course, the Post Office is only the agent in this matter, but perhaps I might stress the obvious and point out that the first condition of restoring health to the small savings of the country is to restore faith in the purchasing power of the £.
I should like to deal very briefly with one or two of the points raised by hon. Members in the last debate, on the Post Office Money Bill in 1950. My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Sir R. Grimston) raised the question of helicopters. As he knows, experiments were carried out between 1947 and 1950 in Dorset and also in East Anglia, but they have been abandoned. It was found that the cost of sending mail by this way was virtually prohibitive and that it was impossible to maintain a sufficiently reliable rate of regularity during the hours of darkness. I cannot hold out very much hope of any early developments in this direction until there is a more reliable


machine and, above all, until the ban on the use of a single-engined helicopter over towns and also over water is removed.

Mr. Hobson: And with variable loads.

Mr. Gammans: My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury also raised the question of submarine repeaters, about which I have something more hopeful to report. These repeaters have proved very successful in the cables between this country and Ireland, and epecially between here and the Continent, and we hope at a later stage to improve the performance of the Atlantic cables in this way, especially the Atlantic cable which we are starting to relay this summer.
The only other matter to which I might refer is the new postage stamps. Quite a number of Questions have been asked about them. There will be a special Coronation stamp next year, as there was for the Coronation of King George VI. This, of course, will be the ordinary 2½d. denomination and, like other commemorative stamps, will be of a larger size. Some of the permanent stamps for the new reign should be ready before the end of this year.
Many hon. Members have suggested a variety of pictorial designs, but I must remind them that so long as we keep to the ordinary standard size stamp, there is not very much room for variation. We are, of course, the only country that has the privilege of not having the name of the country on its stamp. That is accorded to us partly by tradition, and because we were the first country to use postage stamps, and also because the Sovereign's head forms the prinicipal feature of the design. I assure the House, as I have done in answer to Questions, that the Council of Industrial Design are being fully consulted before the final submissions are made to Her Majesty.
In presenting the Bill to the House, I have tried to give some idea of the purposes for which the money will be spent, but I have also tried to sketch the background against which the provision of this money must be viewed. If there are any points which I have not made particularly clearly, perhaps, with the permission of the House, I may do so before the debate is over.

4.10 p.m.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The hon. Gentleman has covered quite a considerable amount of ground and my hon. Friends and I are grateful to him for the occasional complimentary remark which fell from his lips. What has struck me most has been the affection that the hon. Gentleman has so rapidly acquired for the Post Office. When he was on this side of the House he could roar like a lion about the Post Office, but now that he is there he coos like a dove.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Poacher turned gamekeeper?

Mr. Ness Edwards: Yes, a poacher turned gamekeeper, and I must say that he has trimmed himself out with all the paraphernalia of the gamekeeper.
One must not forget that yesterday the hon. Gentleman was referred to by that amalgam of characters "Cross Bencher" as the man of hope. I think that the hon. Gentleman indicated that so far as essential telephone subscribers are concerned, he is the man without hope, for very little hope can be gathered from what he has said. I cannot forget that when he was on this side of the House the hon. Gentleman used to attack the Post Office with a great deal of venom and nothing has pleased me more than to see that at last he has acquired respect for what, after all, is one of our greatest institutions and one of the finest bodies of men working in this country. A Daniel has come to judgment and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has delivered himself in such an able way.
I want to come to some of the things which the hon. Gentleman did not touch upon and on which we could not expect him to touch. First, while he will get an extremely easy passage for this Bill—he is bound to, as we certainly want him to be given the money for the job—we are alarmed that one-third of the money, apparently, is to be spent on the defence programme. We hope that this one-third to be spent on the defence programme will be carried on the Votes of other Departments. Is the Post Office to pay the interest on what is spent not for their purposes? This is a serious matter and requires to be looked at again.
I would remind the hon. Gentleman that he has vet to discuss his Telephone


Regulations and yet to discuss the increased charges he proposes to levy under the new Regulations which are to be laid and one of which, I understand, has already been paid. He will recollect that when I provided for increased charges of £8 million in the Post Office the House was in a furore. The hon. Gentleman, apparently, has agreed with the Chancellor to raise at least another £13 million, very much of which is not required for Post Office purposes.
Apparently he has allowed the Post Office to become a department of the Inland Revenue. [An HON. MEMBER: "You did."] No, I did not because I made the announcement of Post Office increases, not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I explained why I did it. I explained that it was required for Post Office purposes alone. Now when £13 million more is to be imposed, the announcement is made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chancellor was quite frank about it; he said "It is to assist me." That is what he said in his Budget speech. It only shows what the Treasury is able to do with a weak Postmaster-General.
These matters will have to be discussed again, and they will arise. I think the Estimates should be discussed and the Commercial Account. While the hon. Gentleman will get a pleasant, easy, passage this afternoon, I wish to warn him that when we discuss these other matters we shall be as unkind to him as he was to us, though we shall have greater justification than he had. This Bill provides another example of Treasury control of this great business undertaking. This is what it says:
The detailed programme of expenditure and the works to be carried out in each year are subject to the approval of the Treasury.
This is really shocking. Would this House for one moment say that the programme of development work by the Coal Board, the Electricity Authority, the Gas Board or the Transport Commission should be under the control of the Treasury?

Mr. Charles Ian Orr-Ewing: Yes.

Mr. Ness Edwards: It should be under the control of the House, but I do not see that any quality of being a good arithmetician is necessary for running a

big business undertaking. The Treasury is only concerned about the books at the end of the year. This is like putting the cashier to run John Lewis's.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: What about the right hon. Gentleman's Economic Planning Board? If that is really the view the right hon. Gentleman has of the Treasury, I wonder how it ties in with the fact that his Government had an Economic Planning Board with the Treasury. They are surely not the people who simply add up something?

Mr. Ness Edwards: The hon. Member should distinguish between capital investment controlled by the Planning Board and detailed control by the Treasury. If the hon. Member will read the Explanatory Memorandum he will see that consent must be obtained from the Capital Investment Board and that, in addition, a detailed programme must be submitted to the Treasury each year. As the Assistant Postmaster-General has said, this is an undertaking in which what we do today will affect us for the next four or five years, and if we do not build telephone exchanges today it means that for the next four or five years we cannot have telephones. Here is something which requires planning—planning ahead—but under this arrangement all that can be done is to plan to the time of the next Budget. This is not the way to run a great business undertaking of this kind.

Sir William Darling: Who controls the expenditure of the Post Office? Is it the experience of the right hon. Gentleman that the Treasury just count up to 10 and multiply by five? Is that what he wants?

Mr. Ness Edwards: The hon. Member should not have put that question. If he had known the Post Office at all he would have known that the Postmaster-General is responsible for all the business which takes place inside the Post Office and is responsible to and gives to the House a full and detailed account of everything that happens inside the Post Office. In this sense it is the only nationalised undertaking which has such close Parliamentary accountability and because there is this complete Parliamentary accountability I say that the arithmeticians of the Treasury ought not to poke their fingers in and interfere in the operations of this great undertaking.
That is my point of view and I will deal with it further when we come to one or two other points.
The Treasury have always sought to dominate the Post Office and use it as a tax gatherer. That has always been the view taken by the Treasury. We have had it in the new charges which are to be imposed. The Post Office ought to be a business concern and in the charges it makes for the services it gives there ought not to be an element of easy taxation. That, apparently, is the principle which is being given away by the Postmaster-General.

Mr. Gammans: I cannot quite see how the right hon. Gentleman can suggest that the Post Office is becoming a vehicle for easy taxation when the estimated surplus on the Commercial Account for the coming year will be less, with one exception, than for 25 years.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I could understand the hon. Gentleman saying that if he were outside this House, in another place. But he heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer make his Budget speech. He heard the Chancellor say that these increases were to assist him, and not to assist the Post Office. That is the element I am attacking. I am saying that the Treasury have far too great a say in this undertaking; that by the very nature of things they are not competent to interfere in this undertaking which has at its head men—as the hon. Gentleman himself said this afternoon—who have very great business experience and who are doing a remarkably good job in very difficult circumstances. Yet they have to account to people who know nothing at all about running the Post Office.
I am astonished that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has his name on this Bill. Perhaps it is he whom I ought to be attacking and not the Assistant Postmaster-General. He, apparently, is the nigger in the woodpile. He, too, roared like any lion when on this side of the House about this very thing. Now he is guilty of the very thing he used to condemn. I would suggest to the hon. Gentleman that the time has come to have a new Bridgeman Committee to look at the Post Office structure again and its relation to the Treasury. Ought it to be tied in the way it is? Ought not it to

run its own business with proper accountability to this House, and without interference from the Treasury. Ought not it to be able to plan ahead, beyond the date of the next Budget?
When I was in office I started these discussions, both inside the Post Office and with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, who was then Prime Minister, with a view to getting a new Bridgeman Committee established to examine the whole structure of the Post Office; in particular, its relation to the Treasury. I invite the hon. Gentleman to consult his noble Friend to see if we can have this examination. It is highly necessary because, as he has himself indicated, very few people in the House understand the mystery of the Post Office accounts. It is possible to have a cash loss and a commercial profit. That is the position.
Ought not we to assimilate the two things? Why should there be these two sets of figures which only serve to mystify everybody? The hon. Gentleman has referred to the free services given to other Departments, amounting this year to £24 million. Ought not this to be paid for in cash so that the Post Office could have in its cash account a proper reflection of the services which it renders? It might well be, as the hon. Gentleman has said, that those other Departments who get these services without payment might be a little more careful in the way they use them if they had to pay; and some of these resources might be available to the private citizen.

Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing: I made exactly this very point to the right hon. Gentleman the year before last when he was on this side of the House, and he parried with a perfect argument. Has he completely changed his view, or not? Is he trying to make a little political capital, just because he has changed sides?

Mr. Ness Edwards: No, I am not trying to make any political capital. I am trying to help the Post Office in this matter.

Mr. Gerald Williams: Then why not do it?

Mr. Ness Edwards: That is the question I was waiting for from the hon. Member whose mental processes are so obvious that one can see the wheels


going round. It was agreed before the Election, between the Treasury and the Post Office, that a cash payment should be made. What has happened to it? I invite the hon. Gentleman to tell us. I have accepted that view. It had been my view for some time. I had been working—

Mr. William Ross: This was the view first put by the Estimates Committee of the House in 1950.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I agree that when the Report of the Estimates Committee was put to the Treasury, the Treasury turned it down. The explanation was made to the Estimates Committee. [HON. MEMBERS: "Manpower."] Manpower was the excuse. But we went into the matter and got this agreement prior to the Election. I want to know what has happened to it. This would make a difference of £24 million in the cash accounts of the Post Office. I do not want to make political capital out of it at all—

Sir W. Darling: Why not?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I agree, why not? I have a perfect right to make political capital out of it. But one occasion when we ought to try to keep politics out is when we are discussing the Post Office. After all, as was suggested by hon. Gentlemen opposite, it is a national undertaking, a public undertaking, and we ought to remember to give to the Post Office that degree of national loyalty which perhaps we may not show on other occasions and in connection with other subjects.
I hope, therefore, that the Assistant Postmaster-General will press his noble Friend on this matter again. Let us see if we can get this mystery of the Post Office accounts cleared up, so that the House may have a statement of the financial affairs of the Post Office which is easily understood; and, at the same time, make all those other Departments pay for their services, so there is no undue waste and, if possible, make available for private citizens some of the resources which are being given—rather lavishly—to all the defence services.
I was proposing to ask the hon. Gentleman some questions about radio links, but as he has said, we are due to have a White Paper on the subject in the near

future, so I will not trouble him any more about that now. I was proposing to ask him about some of the factories. Some of this money will be required for them. I had in mind the Cwmcarn factory, which is waiting for new machinery. What has happened to the tyre re-treading factory? Where does Dollis Hill come into this? I take it they are working on the submarine repeater. Those are some of the things I expected the hon. Member would tell us about rather than giving us the usual figures about a great increase in work in the Post Office.
What the Assistant Postmaster-General has had to say about the telephone position is exceedingly tragic. The year before last I was able to do a substantial amount. I agree that I used up every spare bit of plant available to get the maximum number of telephones installed. The hon. Gentleman apparently has more capital available to him than I had, except that he is giving one-third to defence. I knew we were coming up against this position, but even despite all we were able to do in those circumstances the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends, when they were on this side of the House, were thoroughly dissatisfied, thoroughly scornful about what they regarded as meagre progress.
But today he has said that there will be no new buildings. The building schedules will not start this year. Of the applicants for telephones who are still waiting, who number over 400,000, only one-fifth will be satisfied in the coming year. And I presume that that is a generous estimate, because if one-third of this capital is to be devoted to defence purposes, I cannot see how even that is to be achieved. In the Development Areas we are very short of telephone equipment, as the hon. Gentleman knows. All these new factories have gone up and the Development Areas were neglected for a good many years. I agree that it was because the demand was not there, and it was expected that the demand would go down, but new factories were built.
We have this new development, therefore, and unless we can get new telephone exchanges in those areas I cannot see how many of these factories will be able to carry on their business as effectively and efficiently as they ought. I hope the hon. Gentleman will give much more consideration to this matter and see whether he cannot bring a little pressure to bear


to secure for these Development Areas, where the need for progress with telephones is greater than in any other part of the country, dispensation from the rule of no new buildings.
I agree that the question of sickness rates is serious. I am not going to draw any conclusions from the figures which the hon. Gentleman gave, but I agree that this is a matter which requires very much closer examination. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, or his noble Friend, will take the three trade unions into his confidence. It is up to them, as well as to the Post Office administration, to find the solution. The matter was brought to my attention in the last months of my stay at the Post Office. I had some discussion with the medical officer to see whether we could find some explanation for this rather phenomenal rise in sickness rates which was costing a considerable amount of money. I regret to hear that the position has grown worse and I hope that the unions will play their full part in an investigation to see whether the problem can be overcome.
I do not think that there are any other points I want to raise from the hon. Gentleman's speech. I was glad to hear him—and I hope he speaks on behalf of his right hon. and hon. Friends—express his admiration for the splendid and loyal body of employees who work inside the Post Office. If he is allowed to stay there, then I hope the longer he stays the more will he find not only that his opinion is confirmed but that his affection for the Post Office grows. I hope he will try to give to the Post Office that freedom to plan its own affairs, and to plan ahead, to which it is entitled, and I hope he will bear in mind two or three points I have made today with a view to relieving the Post Office from undue interference from the Treasury.

4.33 p.m.

Mr. F. J. Erroll: I was interested to hear from the speech of the Assistant Postmaster-General that he is anxious to encourage visits by Members of Parliament to Post Office sorting offices and telephone exchanges, because I think that might help us all to achieve a fuller understanding of the work of the Post Office. I suggest to my hon. Friend that he send the invitations to bodies outside the House as well—to local

authorities and to any other local groups who may be interested. It has seemed to me that, while Post Office officials are keen to show off their work when given a chance to do so, they have all too few opportunities of explaining to the public what are the complications in Post Office sorting offices, for example, and what are the complexities of telephone exchanges.
It would be a great help if there could be more contact between local postmasters and local authorities. The Post Office Advisory Committee may be all right in its way, but it is much too remote a body to be really effective at what I might call the town level. If criticims boil up in a district about slow or late deliveries, there is no local organisation for dealing with such complaints readily. Usually the matter festers in the local newspapers and there is a good deal of discontent before there is any attempt to deal with the problem.
I believe that many Government departments have a much better local public relations system in that respect than have the Post Office. I do not suggest that it is anybody's fault, but it is something to which attention might be given in order to produce a letter carrying and postal delivery service which meets the needs of the individual citizen.

Mr. W. R. Williams: If the hon. Gentleman makes inquiries of his local head postmaster, he will find that facilities are always freely given to any public body or any association or, indeed, to any individual or to school children to visit the Post Office and see the telephone exchanges and telegraph offices whenever they like. I should not like it to go out from the House that the Post Office are second to any Government Department in trying to get the public to understand how they work and the amount of work they do and the method of their working. I thought I ought to make that clear.

Mr. Erroll: I am not suggesting that there is any unwillingness on the part of the Post Office. I am suggesting that there might be a little more initiative from the senior Post Office officials so that, instead of waiting for applications from public bodies, they might perhaps write and invite them. I should like to see local postmasters taking a part in Rotary Club activities—

Mr. Williams: They do.

Mr. Erroll: I am glad to hear that. In some cases they do, but in many other cases they do not. An extension of such activities would be of value.
When I spoke on a similar Bill two years ago, I made some criticism of Post Office delivery services—of late deliveries and early collections—and I am glad to be able to say how much I think these services have improved in the last two years. The late final collection has been of very great benefit—and I believe I wrote to the then Postmaster-General at the time to say how much it would be appreciated. As I was so critical two years ago, I should like to place on record today how much I think that that extension of the service has improved conditions generally.
One thing which has been brought very much to my notice is the amount of trouble caused when a letter is incorrectly addressed. In going round the Manchester sorting office, I saw examples of how quite small slips in writing the address could lead to difficulties. Many complaints which I sent to the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) were about delivery delays. Often the explanation was that the cover was incorrectly addressed and had had to go to another office in the course of transmission.
I wonder whether some machinery could be devised for persuading people to use the correct address on their headed notepaper? One so often comes across cases where the address is incorrect on the cover because the printed address on the top of the notepaper is wrong—and it may be wrong for a variety of reasons. In my constituency, for example, Sale is in Cheshire, but the correct postal address is "Sale, Manchester." Again, at the other end of the division, there is a suburb called Bowdon. Some people prefer to use the address, "Bowdon, Cheshire," whereas I understand that the correct address is "Bowdon, Altrincham."
I suggest that a check could be made at the time the notepaper was being printed—or applications could be invited—to ensure that the correct postal address was shown. Perhaps more publicity could be given in that direction, or perhaps the Post Office could take note where an incorrect address was being used on letters going to one particular place.
They could, again, take the initiative, instead of merely waiting, and could point out to the householder that the wrong address was being used. It would all help to improve the efficiency and speed with which letters are delivered.
I think the former criticisms of counter service have largely disappeared, for there has been a marked improvement in the efficiency and courtesy which one receives at the Post Office, and that is all the more remarkable when one realises the amount of additional work which Post Offices are now called upon to do.
Here again, I should like to see a more progressive attitude in enabling people who do not wish to visit a post office to be able to order their requirements through the post. When one thinks how popular the mail order business is, and that it is only possible by virtue of the Post Office, one would have thought that the Post Office would encourage mail order business for its own sales. It is very rarely necessary to pay a personal visit to, say, the bank; nearly all transactions can be done through the post. One can order books, and many other personal requirements through the post, but to obtain a book of stamps or a registered envelope, or a simple article of that sort, one has to pay a personal visit, often at considerable inconvenience.

Mr. Wallace: Does the hon. Gentleman not know that stamps can be bought from the postman?

Mr. Erroll: I was aware of that, but it is very rarely practicable to do so.

Mr. Wallace: Why?

Mr. Erroll: Because it delays the postman still further. What is wanted is a delivery service which does not involve the postman waiting on the doorstep while the transaction is completed; in other words, to be able to buy postal articles through the post in the same way as one buys many other articles through the post.
I feel that the harmful effects of the restrictions on the telephone service just announced will induce a real sense of frustration in the Post Office engineering staffs. I know that in this matter the Assistant Postmaster-General is not really master of his own organisation; his rate of expansion is determined by the


Government as a whole. I suggest that the Post Office is being held down far more than other organisations.

Mr. Hobson: Because it is nationalised.

Mr. Erroll: That is hardly correct, because I noticed that there seems to be little difficulty in building all the generating stations the country wants, and they are all nationalised. I wish we could see new exchange construction at even the rate of one-tenth of new power station building. I know that electricity is an essential service, but so, nowadays, is a proper telephone service. I wish that we could see a proportionate amount of capital expenditure on improving the telephone service that we see in the field of electricity supply, and in many other industries. If the oil companies can build home refineries, surely the Post Office could build a few new telephone exchanges. I am sorry that what must be a keen staff should be so held back by this policy of restriction, which is undoubtedly greatly in excess of that applying to other concerns, whether publicly or privately owned.
At the installation end there is undoubtedly a policy of rigidity to be overcome. For example, there is the unnecessary restriction on the length of cable between the fixing point and the hand microphone instrument. I am often told that there is not enough cable. But there is; there is plenty. One can have as long a flex as one likes for a bedside lamp. Why cannot we have as long a flex as we like for the hand microphone set? And why must these hand microphone sets always be black? Before the war they could be in different colours. It would be quite easy to have them in colours again, and it would produce more revenue, too, which ought to be attractive to the Postmaster-General.
Again, why not have a higher standard of workmanship in some of the wiring installations themselves. I am referring particularly to inside wiring; many cases I have seen recently are of a lower standard than would be expected of an ordinary firm of reputable electrical contractors. There have been such things as the flex badly taped off with insulating tape in a very clumsy fashion, or the use of black-headed staples on a white

painted surface. Those are points of detail, but points which ought to be eradicated from a service which is proud of its abilities.
I very much deplore the decision about the telephone directories. It cannot be worth while to stop issuing any more telephone directories except on application. It is bad enough as it is, with only one new issue per annum, but if we are to get a new telephone directory only on application, many householders, who either do not know or do not bother, will be working with out-of-date directories. That can only cause further confusion, and, of course, overloading of directory inquiries throughout the country.
I am sorry, too, to hear that telephone exchange construction is to be stopped for a year. I hope that those which are under construction will be built much more quickly, because I cannot believe that there is any value in going very slowly in the building of telephone exchanges. I am particularly concerned about the one in Sale, which has been building for a year now at a very slow rate of progress. If it is to be built, as I believe it should be, do build it quickly; let us get the equipment there and the exchange into use. A great deal of loss is occasioned by a slow rate of construction, and I believe that quite valuable work can be achieved by doing the job quickly.
I do not want to say any more, except that I have been critical of the Post Office in the past, and I shall not hesitate to be critical again in the future; but I have detected a considerable measure of improvement in the service in the last two years, since I last spoke on this subject, and it is on that note that I wish to conclude my remarks today.

4.46 p.m.

Mr. Charles Grey: The debate so far has been very limited in character. Before I decided to take part in it, I took the opportunity of looking at the report of the debate in 1950, in which the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) spoke, and made a very much more critical speech then than he has done today. Whether or not he was playing politics, I do not know.
In my speech I wish to mention two points, which I do not think will be raised by any other hon. Member. First, let me


say this about the speech of the Assistant Postmaster-General. It was very good as far as it went; I enjoyed his detailed account of the ramifications of the Post Office and the work that is done. But I was very disturbed when he skipped over television by saying that a White Paper is to be issued, and when I interjected he could not tell when it would be issued. I therefore take this opportunity of dealing with two points which form a bone of contention between the Postmaster-General and the North-East—and, incidentally, the B.B.C.
Before doing that, I should like to pay my tribute to the B.B.C. and the trade for the part they have played in bringing the television service to its present state. I believe that we were the first country in the world to have a public television service. I think that we would have been leading the world and would have had a tremendous export trade had it not been for the war. However, we must do our best to overcome the difficulty imposed upon us by that disastrous conflict.
I wish to deal with the Government's determination not to reconsider their decision to stop work on the erection of a small power station at Pontop Pike. I think that the money to be voted under this Bill could be used for the purpose. Of course, the reason given has always been—and I have no doubt that when the Assistant Postmaster-General replies he will give it as the reason, as did my right hon. Friend before him—that rearmament must come first. In case I am misunderstood, let me say that I entirely agree with that principle. I entirely agree. We must see to our defences. If I thought for one moment that what I am now advocating would impede our defence effort in any way, I would not advocate that the work should be restarted.
I believe that the expenditure on work at Pontop Pike would be so small when compared with the expenditure on rearmament that it would not hurt our defence effort in the slightest degree, and I want to put two points of proof to the Assistant Postmaster-General. I think he knows that the co-axial cable is already at Durham and, therefore, the largest part of the cost has already been borne. If more than three-parts of the cost has already been met, it seems silly nonsense to have the main essential for the station lying idle and the job not completed.
My second point of proof is the effect the erection of this small power station would have on the electronics industry. I readily admit that the Government are facing a difficulty and I believe this was a realistic point which had to be considered. The erection of this small power station would, naturally, mean that more people would want to buy more television sets. But the Government have met that difficulty in another way. Whether that way is right or wrong I am not prepared to argue. If we argued about the principle we should be ruled out of order probably, but what has been done is an established fact. The Government's new policy on hire purchase has had a tremendous effect on the demand for and sale of television sets. One can go anywhere and see a colossal number of television sets on sale. The demand for them has considerably lessened.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): I have allowed a good deal of latitude, but there is nothing about television in the Bill—only postal, telegraph and telephone systems.

Mr. Grey: With respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I was trying to bring out the argument whether some of the money provided could not be used to erect a station at Pontop Pike.

Mr. Edward Davies: Further to that point. Are we to understand that, according to your Ruling, no discussion of television is permissible under this Bill? Would it not be possible out of money raised by the Department for some expenditure to be made on television apparatus, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Durham (Mr. Grey) mentioned?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That might be so and I therefore allowed a good deal of latitude, but the hon. Member will see that the capital is
… for the development of postal, telegraph and telephone systems …
and I think that television goes well beyond that.

Mr. Davies: Some of us expected the Assistant Postmaster-General to say something on that subject but he said that he was restraining himself today because there was to be a further debate,


not because of technicalities or lack of competence in the Bill. With respect, some of us who have considered the Bill, and, I think, the Minister too, take a rather different view from that which you have expressed.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The capital provided for in the Bill enables the Post Office to provide any radio and cable links for the provision of television as well as certain buildings. It seems to me that up to that point, anyhow, it is in order to discuss television in so far as it is related to the provision of facilities by the Post Office.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That seems to me a little indirect and I was quite generous in what I allowed, but the Bill really only provides for postal, telegraph and telephone systems.

Mr. Grey: The words,
… and of any other business of the Post Office, …
are in the Bill.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Where?

Mr. Grey: In the long title.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think that the difference comes when one looks at the Clauses of the Bill. In any case, I will not rule very strictly, though I do not think the subject is really in order.

Mr. Grey: I was referring to the hire purchase system. There is no doubt that it will be the poorer people who will be hit by an alteration to the system, because of their inability to carry out the new terms. I ask the Assistant Postmaster-General to take note of the points I have made because I believe the work could be carried out without throwing any additional weight on the electronics industry and would give existing owners of television sets much fairer value for their money and a much better picture.
If my efforts fail now—and I have been trying to have something done since 1948—will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that we stand high on the priority list and that when the position becomes easier we will not receive the same treatment in the case of television as we have had over the shared wavelength with Northern Ireland? To say that we have

not had good treatment in that connection is only to put it mildly.
The history of the matter goes back to 1945 when the B.B.C. started to operate on a new frequency transmitter for Northern Ireland. The B.B.C. were fair enough to admit that they deplored the necessity for it and they explained that the wavelength would only be shared until a new wavelength could be secured. They further admitted that the service would be less satisfactory and that the volume would be reduced and also that it would be necessary for the Northern Ireland transmitter and the Stagshawe transmitter always to transmit the same programme. It was firmly stated at the time that the B.B.C. would see that the programme content would be shared.
These prophecies were right in only two aspects. We certainly did have a less satisfactory service, and Northern Ireland and Stagshawe always transmit the same programme; but the B.B.C.'s idea of a shared programme was simply shocking. For 12 months, day after day and month after month, we had nothing but Northern Ireland programmes transmitted to us. In view of the comments at that time, the B.B.C. ought to have seen that something was done about it, though how it was thought about in the first place I fail to understand.
Our area has ten times more licensed listeners than Northern Ireland has, but despite that we were always subject to the B.B.C. Northern Ireland headquarters. They alone decided what should be transmitted. Even when the Newcastle studio produced a local programme, they had no authority for seeing that it went on the air in Tyneside. One could also only expect poor quality transmission. Sometimes the arrangements meant that a programme from this country was sent by line and cable to Belfast and then back again to Stagshawe.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I really think that this is going beyond the Bill. The B.B.C. works on a charter; it does not work under the Post Office.

Mr. Grey: Well, I am just finishing that point, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
I should like to conclude on this point. Time and time again the Assistant Postmaster-General has stated that the only way in which this problem can be overcome is by the introduction of very


high frequency. But this cannot be done so long as capital expenditure is to be restricted. That can be a long way ahead; and I should like to ask the Assistant Postmaster-General whether there could not be a re-allocation of wavelengths in this country, or, better still, whether Stagshawe could not operate from 434 metres, thus giving us a wavelength which would give a measure of satisfaction to those of us in the North-East and also to the people in Northern Ireland who are just as disgusted with the present arrangement as we are.

5.1 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Thompson: Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I shall try to raise two or three points, at least two of which I can guarantee will be within the very tolerant rules of order that you have allowed so far, and as to the other one I must just hope for the best.
I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General on the rare skill with which he has gathered together the reins of the Department, which he now plays so large a part in conducting. I was as interested as my hon. Friends were, I believe, to hear of some of the things for which the Department takes responsibility. I can imagine the great delight which my hon. Friend must have experienced when he opened whatever document it was which keeps these things properly docketed and discovered that he could send a cow by post. I wondered for a time whether his researches had carried him far enough to enable him to tell the House when the last cow was sent in this manner and whether it arrived safely at its destination. I am sure it must have done, otherwise there would have been many complaints from the public before now.
I should like to congratulate those Members of the Post Office and telephone staffs in my constituency, and generally in the City of Liverpool, for the work that they are doing and the way in which they are doing it. It is not always the lot of a public representative, either local or national, to come into contact with public officials occupying difficult and complicated jobs and to find that they are able to do those jobs very largely to the satisfaction of the public and at the same time to deal with public representatives in a sympathetic and interested manner as if they really cared about the problems

that they have to deal with. It has been my happy experience to discover that Post Office officials in the Merseyside area invariably discharge their duties in this way, and I am sure in other areas, too.
May I raise one point which is a very real difficulty in the part of the City of Liverpool that I represent, and that is the very old complaint respecting the telephone service? I have in my constituency a number of constituents who are waiting for telephones—a very common experience in all parts of the country. Some of them have been waiting for four or five years.
The complaints which reach me are that those who have been waiting this long time are far from satisfied that newcomers to the telephone service are the people who should properly be provided with the service before they are. In other words, they are not quite satisfied that the system of priorities of the order of satisfaction of demand is being rigidly adhered to. While my hon. Friend clearly cannot give the names and dates in respect of applications for the telephone service, I hope that he will be able to give the House an assurance that proper regard is paid to the dates on which people apply when connecting them up with the telephone service.
In my constituency, as in the constituency of one of my hon. Friends who spoke a moment ago, a telephone exchange is being built and has been in course of erection for a very long time. As far as I can see, it will be building for a very long time yet. I very much hope that something will be done as a result of the provisions of this Bill to enable that telephone exchange to be completed in a reasonably short time, satisfying both those who already have the telephone service and hope for it to improve, and those who are on the waiting list.
In my constituency, not only is there a telephone exchange under construction, but we have every year another very significant event. A horse race is run, which is known throughout the civilised world as the Grand National Steeplechase. Customarily a commentary on this Grand National Steeplechase has been broadcast to the world by means of the use of Post Office lines which are used by the B.B.C. I hope with your tolerance, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to explain how near I am coming


to the point of order and, in fact, how nearly I am escaping your disapproval. A commentary on this race is normally broadcast every year. This year the arrangement by which the broadcast reaches the public has broken down, because it has not been possible to satisfy the promoters of the race that such copyright as may properly be theirs can be preserved.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We cannot have a debate on Tophams, Limited.

Mr. Thompson: I am hoping to avoid that. I am trying to draw your attention to the conditions which the Postmaster-General prints on the licence which he issues in return for a fee paid. I hope you do not think it presumptuous of me, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I really am trying to show where the responsibility for this failure lies.
The Postmaster-General provides to sound listeners and television viewers a licence which contains these words:
The licensee shall not without the consent in writing of the Postmaster-General connect the apparatus with any house, flat or other premises occupied by any person other than himself or a member of his family and/or domestic servants, or allow the same to be so connected.
My point is this. Because the Postmaster-General does not insist on the observation of that regulation, there have been abuses of the broadcast. The commentary has been rediffused by means of instruments improperly connected in contravention of this regulation, as a result of which the promoters of any given sporting event—in this particular case the promoters of the Grand National—have felt themselves compelled to say "If the Postmaster-General allows these rediffusions to go on in this way to our detriment, we must insist that the commentary shall not be; broadcast at all."
It seems to me that it is a very great pity if 20 million or 30 million people who want to listen to this broadcast are denied the pleasure and privilege of doing so because of the failure of the Postmaster-General to put into operation his own regulations. I very much hope that when he is exercising what he himself described as his duty in being responsible for preventing evasions of the wireless licence, he will bear in mind that, without being repressive in any way, he can benefit the general public at large to a considerable

extent by putting his own regulations in order.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is going beyond the responsibilty of the Postmaster-General. It is not the Postmaster-General who stops the broadcast of the Grand National.

Mr. Thompson: No, Sir. I will pursue the point no further, having made my protest. I am deeply indebted to the House for the courtesy with which I have been heard, and I should like to say to my hon. Friend that whether or not the responsibility can be properly attributed to him, neither I nor the general public bear him any ill will whatever.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. Charles Royle: I wish to follow the hon. Member for Walton (Mr. K. Thompson) to the extent that I, too, wish to raise a constituency point. I apologise to the Assistant Postmaster-General for doing so without giving him any notice. If he is not able to give me any reply later in the debate, I hope that he will be able to assure me that he will send me a reply, if only by post. If he does reply by post, I hope that the delivery of the letter will be very much quicker than in the cases which I wish to draw to his attention.
I refer to the terrible case of the City of Salford. Salford, in close proximity to Manchester, has become rather swallowed up by that city as far as its postal and telephone services are concerned. For a period of probably 20 years, predecessors of mine in this House have raised this question with the Post Office to see if some better arrangements could be made. It is a fact that we have no real general post office in a city of 178,000 inhabitants. In that city we have the postal districts, Manchester 5, Manchester 6, Manchester 7 and Manchester 8. It is a bad thing for the pride of a city of that size and standing, which is rendering tremendous service to the community and the country by its industries, that it has no postal district of its own but is swallowed up by a larger city on the other side of the River Erwell.
As far as the telephone service is concerned, there is no Salford exchange. There are five exchanges serving the City of Salford, and three of those exchanges have names of localities outside the city. For example, there is Eccles; there is Blackfriars and Trafford Park, all of


which are districts not actually inside the City of Salford. The result is that there is constantly a general mix-up of subscribers trying to get through to Salford industrial firms. Trafford Park has a huge industrial area of its own, and people are inclined to be completely confused when they find they have to ring up a Trafford Park number in order to get through to a Salford firm.
I should like to tell the Assistant Postmaster-General about postal trouble and delay in delivery. By virtue of the fact that we have no general post office of our own, we are finding—

Mr. W. R. Williams: What possible difficulties can arise from the simple fact that Salford is a postal district without a head office of its own? From my knowledge of the postal arrangements, I cannot see what possible difficulty with regard to circulation can arise from that fact.

Mr. Royle: I have in my hand a letter from a firm in my constituency, complaining that a parcel of samples posted on Tuesday afternoon was not actually delivered until Friday morning to an address half a mile away, in another postal district of Manchester.
We in this great city have some civic pride, and we deplore the fact that we are dependent upon the postal work of a city which, though in close proximity to us, has nothing like our historical standing in the county. I apologise to the House for keeping it even for five minutes on a purely constituency question; but this matter is of vital importance to the city I have the honour to represent, and I hope my complaint will be taken seriously and the whole thing looked at fully. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will let me have a reply, if not today, at some future date.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Beverley Baxter: I should first like to apologise to the Assistant Postmaster-General for not having been here for his speech. I was presiding over a public luncheon where two men were speaking on the answer to Russia. I sometimes think that getting the answer to Russia is about as easy as an answer to a toll call on our telephone system.
I was particularly anxious to hear the Assistant Postmaster-General speak because he represents the constituency

next to mine—Hornsey. In other words, to reverse the call, his constituency adjoins the most delightful and intelligent constituency in the whole of London—Southgate.

Mr. Frederick Messer: It happens to be in Middlesex and not in London.

Mr. Baxter: London boasts of having Southgate. I quite agree that it is technically in Middlesex, but it is in the London Telephone Directory, I had hoped to see my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General in the Colonial Office instead of the Post Office; but it is the custom in politics to put men into ministerial posts not because of their experience but because they are thought to be the right men. But having listened for 16 or 17 years to one Postmaster-General after another, it does not seem to matter very much from which side they speak.
It rather reminds me of the time when, during the war, Sir Archibald Sinclair was appointed Secretary of State for Air. When he made his first speech as a Minister he said, "When I took over this office I found that what was going on was too many people trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I am glad to see that since I took charge we are doing the very opposite." I feel that these two Ministerial representatives are doing very much the same thing.
Even if the Post Office is State-controlled, there must be some relation between revenue and expenditure. Ours is the only system in the world where one can take half an hour or ten seconds over a telephone call for the same cost. Would it not be possible to conduct a publicity campaign to make women end their conversations on the telephone when they have said all that they have to say? The wastage of time on the telephone by women is a disgrace to the State and it should be curbed.
Another thing is the official attitude towards the telephone. I have constituents who have to earn their livings as businessmen who cannot get private telephones. I know of one man who controls three businesses and who cannot get a telephone in his house or, if he does, can only get a party line. I was born in Canada and I am old enough to remember the arrival of the telephone, when


there were four or five subscribers on a party line, and listening to the neighbours was part of Canadian life. Years have passed, progress assails the world, and once more we have party lines in this country. It is disgraceful.
The telephone is an instrument of necessity and efficiency. I think my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General should look into the matter and compare it with what happens in America. The Americans, of course, are rather backward people. They have not learned the blessings of State control. The telephone has to pay, the telegrams have to pay, and so they say, "How is it going to pay? We must get more people to telephone and telegraph more often."

Mr. Wallace: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House that the price for a local telephone call in the United States has been increased to 8½d.?

Mr. Baxter: Personally, if I am in a hurry for a telephone call I do not care what it costs. The other night at 11.30 I wanted to send a telegram. It was impossible to get any reply. There may, of course, have been pressure on the line. Eventually, I asked for assistance, and even then I could not get a reply. After half an hour I gave it up.
I will tell the House again how I finished "Paradise Lost." I never could finish it until I put it beside my telephone. By dialling TOL and listening to that lovely drowsy, droning sound, I finished it in two weeks. Hardly ever was I interrupted after picking up the book.
The whole thing is that telegrams, cables, and telephones are part of the modern efficiency of life. The Americans say that an Englishman picks up the telephone as if he expects it to explode. It could not do anything so dynamic as that.
I think I have said everything I want to say except about television. This is going very close to being out of order, but the matter has been raised. I want to pay a tribute to television in this country. I have seen American television with all its heavy commercialisation and with all the big money that is spent on it. In my opinion the television covering of the funeral of King George VI was beyond praise, especially when compared with the unfortunate

B.B.C. whose tribute consisted of going off the air after the announcement of the King's death. Television in this country is not sufficiently acknowledged. Its programmes today, though starved of money, are better on average than American programmes.
I am grateful, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you have not discovered me to be out of order on this occasion, which is unusual, but if I leave in my hon. Friend's mind the idea that the expenditure on and the efficiency of the telephone and telegraph are part of the necessities of modern life, I shall be content.

5.24 p.m.

Mr. J. Hall: I wish to support what has been said by the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Grey) regarding the strong grievance which the people of the North-East Coast have against the Post Office for the lack of television service in that part of the country. There is a genuine feeling that the people of this thickly populated area are not receiving the same treatment in the provision of television as that accorded to those in the rest of the United Kingdom.
In order to prove that there is an acute feeling on this matter, may I say that quite recently a strong deputation met the Postmaster-General in order to ask him to give favourable consideration to the question of proceeding with the construction of the low-power television transmitter at Pontop Pike. That deputation consisted of no less than 34 representatives from local authorities. Great county boroughs like Newcastle, Sunderland, Gateshead, South Shields, Darlington and the Hartlepools, along with urban and rural district councils of the counties of Durham and Northumberland had first of all a conference to ventilate this grievance, and the deputation was the outcome of that conference.
When I say that the deputation was an important one, I am suggesting that it is really important when voicing the needs of an area with a population of more than 2½ million. There are nearly 300,000 inhabitants in the City of Newcastle, approximately 180,000 in Sunderland, 125,000 in Gateshead, 110,000 in South Shields. 80,000 in Darlington and 70,000 in the Hartlepools, without counting the miners, the transport workers, and other important classes of workpeople and their wives and children in the counties of


Durham and Northumberland. They all live in this extremely busy industrial area, and they are deprived from seeing a television programme.
The people of Durham and Northumberland played an important part in the two world wars. They then worked without stint, and they have done so since in the great production drive towards prosperity. We have seen comparatively few industrial disputes in that area both during the war and in the post-war period of strain and difficulty. It seems strange that when it comes to providing an amenity which is enjoyed by the vast majority of the people of this country, the North-East which has done so much for our survival should be despised and neglected by both the past and present Postmasters-General. This sense of grievance is all the more bitter because of the feeling that the people of Northumberland and Durham are always the last to be considered when it is a question of providing any service for the North-East Coast.
We have to share a wavelength with Northern Ireland. Whilst we have the highest respect for the people of Northern Ireland, we do not like playing second fiddle to a region which has less than half the number of subscribers of the North-East Coast. While Northern Ireland has 75 per cent. of the programme with 204,000 subscribers, we get only 25 per cent. with 480,000 subscribers. It is the same in the big sporting events; in football, boxing and tennis championships, the North-East is out of the picture.
The cost of constructing the Pontop Pike transmitter is only a matter of £150,000, which is a very small proportion of the amount mentioned in the estimate of expenditure under the Bill. The site of the station is on the direct line of the G.P.O. radio link with the Kirk O'Shotts. The booster station which passes on the programmes to Scotland is constructed on Pontop Pike, itself within 200 yards of the proposed transmitter to serve the two counties. There is only the additional cost of the construction of the transmitter and a short cable length in order to put this service into effect for the people of the North-East.
If the Postmaster-General would reconsider the matter and allow this project to go forward, I believe he would

be rewarded by knowing that he would be giving enormous satisfaction to a large number of people. He would also be providing wider facilities for leisure and recreation. In that way we should save more of the national income than is used at present in other leisure-time activities. I hope that he will reconsider the project.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Gerald Williams: I listened with great interest to the speech of the Assistant Postmaster-General. When he sat down I was full of dismay and disappointment. I know quite well that we have to cut down on building not only in the Post Office but in many other Departments, but my hon. Friend told us that he just could not do anything to help improve the supply of telephones or their quicker installation. It seems almost defeatist that he should give such a gloomy picture.
We are in an extremely difficulty economic period at present. If a farmer is doing badly and he is told that he cannot have any more tractors, the result is that he does even worse. The Government are asking us, all day and every day, to be more efficient and to produce more. To do this we must have good staff, up to date offices, efficient transport and, above all, plenty of telephones. In the United States, where telephones are abundant, it is no exaggeration to say that when one lifts up the receiver there is never a delay before an answer is given. From New York one can get straight through to Detroit, Chicago or San Francisco. That is the ideal at which we should aim.
If we could get to that standard, the time saved would represent millions of pounds. Not only should we save time, but we should preserve tempers and morale as well. In my constituency we are lucky. At Tonbridge Wells we have a new telephone exchange which is working extremely well. I note that the former Postmaster-General is taking credit for that. If it is due to him I will certainly acknowledge it.
When I am in London I sometimes have to dial "TOL."I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter) say that he sometimes dialled TOL, and had to give up after half an hour. I do not think that he is given to exaggeration. Other people have had


the same experience. The result is that they stop trying and probably the business is not done. Then there is not only a loss to them but to the country and to production as a whole. Also the Post Office loses revenue which it would have got if it did not take so long to answer these calls.
I wish to say a few words in praise of the courtesy of our operators. We find that in difficult circumstances they are extremely good; but our own tempers when we have been dialling for two or three minutes are not always good. We tax the courtesy of the operators when we are rude to them and we make it difficult for them to maintain their good manners. This unnecessary wait causes great inconvenience to an enormous number of subscribers.
When we are hard pressed to produce more, as we are now, we must use more modern inventions. In the mines we must have modern machinery to produce more coal. If we are to produce plastics or motorcars for export we must have up to date machinery. That is why I believe that under this Bill we are not spending enough money. It is estimated that £40 million will be spent in 1952–53. I know that this is a difficult time at which to suggest more expenditure, but I believe that if we spent another £10 million we could save £50 million in a short time. It is for that reason only that I say that we are not spending nearly enough to make our telephone system efficient.
If we could bring it even into close proximity to the American service, the Assistant Postmaster-General and his noble Friend would earn our everlasting gratitude. I suggest that it would be an economic proposition to increase the supply of telephones. If we are short of telephones, business has to be done in roundabout ways under difficult circumstances, and time and money are wasted. Therefore, for the same reason of economy, I urge the Assistant Postmaster-General to spend more money on supplies as well as on the service.
My last point is on the question of those most unpopular party lines. Those who have had no experience of party lines have no idea how frustrating they are. My hon. Friend the Member for Southgate told us of his experience in Canada. If the Postmaster-General had

to share a line with the Minister of Education he would find it impossible. If the Patronage Secretary had to share a line with the Chief Opposition Whip, that really would be a party line. I know that would not happen, but many hon. Members do not realise how impossible it is to carry on business on a party line. In the circumstances I have described, those concerned could not carry on business.

Mr. Gammans: No one is asked to carry on business on party lines. Only residential subscribers are asked to share party lines.

Mr. Williams: Yes, but in private enterprise many people do business out of hours. Many hon. Members of this House do a large amount of their business at home at night. I urge the hon. Gentleman, for economic reasons, not only to improve the service and the supply of telephones, but to get rid of the party lines. In that way, we should save money and time and we should increase our exports. Not only would the Post Office receive more revenue but the production of the country would be materially increased.

5.38 p.m.

Mr. Harry Wallace: I should like to thank the Assistant Postmaster-General for his statement this afternoon. I could not go so far as to give a welcome to this Bill but for the fact that it provides money for development. I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman's speech, and I could not help but feel that we faced the position that we raise money and then one-third goes to defence and two-thirds, spread over two years, goes to the Post Office. I think that the total is about £98 million, and I suggest that this is an unfair way of meeting the bill for defence.
I do not agree that Postmaster-Generals come and go and that there is really no difference between them. I well remember one Postmaster-General, who was a distinguished Member of the party opposite, who had something to say about the Post Office staff. I think that he was a bad controller of staff—

Sir W. Darling: Fifty years ago.

Mr. Wallace: I have a very long memory. I remember the days when the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Sir W. Darling) and I were in the same movement.


I remember another Postmaster-General who at last recognised the existence of trade unions—and he did not come from the party opposite. It does make a difference, and I think that if my right hon. Friend who was Postmaster-General had remained in office we should have got something done about these commercial accounts. I say that not out of discourtesy to the Assistant Postmaster-General or the present Postmaster-General. We shall try again on that matter later.
I must express my great appreciation of the words used by the Assistant Postmaster-General in regard to the loyalty of the men and women who serve in the Post Office—an industry which has been nationalised for many years. I suggest to hon. Members opposite that in the other nationalised industries we shall in the end have the same personal loyalty to those industries that we have in the Post Office to that industry; and in that connection I think the Post Office has much to offer to those who are willing to learn. I was glad to hear the hon. Gentleman's tribute to the Post Office trade unions and their loyalty to the public service—which, indeed, is a fact.
I think the Assistant Postmaster-General will agree that the trade unions have faced difficult questions with his administration, have accepted decisions which implied great responsibility, and have loyally stood by their word. I do hope, when we deal with the recognition of the Post Office trade unions, that that loyalty, and that sense of responsibility to the public and to the administration, will not be forgotten. It really is too bad that those who break away from agreements should be rewarded by recognition of their desertion. I hope that during the hon. Gentleman's term of office we shall see that system ended. I know that consultations are going on. I also know the hon. Gentleman has a difficult problem. I wish him well, but I do hope that we shall have a more rational system in the Post Office.
There was a reference to wages. Of course, it is true that the wages of Post Office servants have gone up—though not, in their opinion, as much as they should have. I think it true to say that wages have gone up only after prices have gone up. I wish I could feel sure, after listening to the statement of the

Chancellor of the Exchequer, that prices are not going up still further. Anyhow, I am quite convinced that we may yet have to face even further wage claims. Personally, as the production of the country increases, I welcome wage claims, because I wish to see that greater production reflected in the standard of living of those who produce it. I do not think that there is any likelihood of lower costs of labour.
My right hon. Friend referred to Post Office charges containing an element of taxation—of tribute to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That is true. I am not quite sure that I heard the Assistant Postmaster-General correctly, but I rather gathered that he said today that the cost of handling a letter was the price charged to the public—2½d. I think I am correct in saying that when the charge was increased from 1½d. to 2½d. in the early days of the war it definitely contained an element of taxation—of revenue for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I may be wrong, but I still feel that that element of taxation is still there.
Quite frankly, I do not like the Chancellor of the Exchequer's coming to this House to tell us Post Office charges are to be increased. I want to see more freedom for the Postmaster-General within the Post Office. I really think it would better if the Postmaster-General were a Member of this House. I say so without wishing to be discourteous to the Postmaster-General or to the Assistant Postmaster-General; but I do not like the Postmaster-General's being in another place.
I repeat again what I have asked for before—a restoration of the Postmaster-General's annual report, which ceased in 1917. My right hon. Friend once misled me by stating that if I went to the Vote Office I could get it. He knocked me for six by telling me that, but I inquired and I found that I was, after all, quite right—that it had not appeared since 1917. I should be glad to show the Assistant Postmaster-General a copy of the last report, for I have possession of one. I hope that he will consider the question of giving the House comprehensive annual reports so that we shall not have to turn to several documents to see exactly what is happening in the Post Office.
With regard to the commercial accounts, and as I do not want to take up too much time, I shall not say anything more than that I share the view expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House that the other Departments which receive service from the Post Office should pay for it. They receive £24 million worth of service without payment, if I read the commercial accounts correctly.
What is the basis of the calculation of the £24 million, and how does it compare with the value of the residential telephone services? I have a residential telephone. I do not know whether I should be described as in private enterprise or public enterprise on the basis of my business hours, but I know that that telephone is always working at any time of the day. I should like to know the basis of that calculation. The Service Departments, for example, receive services to the value of millions.
I really think that had my right hon. Friend been at the Post Office, and if that had been the attitude of the Treasury then, something would have been accomplished by now, though I am not suggesting for one moment that the Assistant Postmaster-General does not share our view. If my memory serves me aright, I rather think he does. If he is going to take up this matter with the Treasury, I wish him success. I believe he will receive support from all quarters of the House on such an issue.
In the comprehensive statement which the hon. Gentleman made he made no reference to Dollis Hill. I mention this because I regard Dollis Hill as an important branch of the service. I think there was a suggestion made that, in connection with the shared telephone service, experiments were being carried out at Dollis Hill to see that when one subscriber was using the telephone the other was completely cut off. It would be quite possible, I think, for some people to have an entertaining afternoon by picking up their receivers listening to what goes on on their neighbours' lines. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will say whether those experiments are being carried out at Dollis Hill. I think my right hon. Friend once indicated that they were being made there.
With regard to the telephone service, I think 200,000 lines were connected to the public service over the year. If I understood the statement correctly, we are not going to get anything like that, and, according to the commercial accounts, there are over half a million applicants waiting to be connected to the service. On that basis, the outlook is pretty desperate. I may be wrong here, but I fear that these increased charges for the telephone service will force people to drop their demands or to give up the telephone and that would be very unkind, because I agree with those hon. Members who have suggested that the telephone is really a necessity.
I have in my constituency a number of ex-Service men, some of them disabled, who really can only earn their livelihood by the use of the telephone, and who are now worried about the effect of these charges on their small businesses. For others who are still waiting, the situation will be desperate, and I express the hope that hon. Members will not accept this position that we are to have stagnation in the development of the telephone service. I hope we shall find some ways and means of indicating to the Government that we do not subscribe to this policy.
My next point is in reference to buildings. I think it is deplorable that the Assistant Postmaster-General finds himself in the position in which he is to have no money for buildings. Hon. Members have spoken about efficiency, and about the goodwill and co-operation of labour, but bad buildings, bad ventilation, bad lighting and bad lay-out of offices are all factors affecting the health and happiness of the staff. I hope that the Assistant Postmaster-General is not going to accept this standstill in connection with these buildings, and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will be ready to support him in any effort to get the Government to review this policy. My right hon. Friend said that this decision, in the end, would mean lost opportunities and heavy costs in the future, and we had the experience after the First World War when millions of pounds were lost because head postmasters were deprived of using their initiative to get sites and develop new buildings. This decision should be reviewed.
I feel that I ought, perhaps, to say a word about this question of sickness.


Apparently, I did not make myself quite clear. In the Post Office, they have long scales of pay, and those who come into the service, it may be at 30 years of age and even more, married men with families, have to begin at the bottom of the scale. These are difficult days for people on low incomes, and I should like to see the medical officers of the Post Office go into this question of sickness with the unions and the administration in order to see how far these low wages paid at the beginning and in the early days of service are making a contribution to this increased average sickness.
The point I want to bring out is this. When I spoke some 18 months ago, I instanced several offices where the labour turnover and resignations of staff employed in the Post Office were very high. In other words, when I served in Manchester one resignation a year was enough to startle the whole service, but, from the figures which I have, the rate of resignation appears to be very high, while there are difficulties in recruiting.
It is obvious that, if the staff is short by 50 people, and the services have to be maintained and are, in fact, maintained, extra hours have to be worked, and, on the question of extra hours, there is a limit to what one can do by way of overtime. I do not say that that may be the factor today, but I think it has been one of the factors in the past. Anyhow, I hope that the medical officers, the administration and the unions will get together, as they often do, in their Whitley Committee, Working Committee or study groups, and, if they do, I am sure the unions will give every assistance in finding out the real causes of this increased sickness rate.
I am glad to see that the Assistant Postmaster-General made it clear that we are not going back to some of the old conditions and old services. In my time, I did a midnight collection, and it was not a very happy experience. I was therefore glad to hear the hon. Gentleman say that there is no hope of that being restored.
The Minister also said, in opening his speech, that it was now possible for the Post Office to deliver a cow. I know that, when I was in Manchester, I had to take a lady around the shops in Manchester while she did her shopping, and that was not a very pleasant experience, and somewhat out of my line, although I have

had more experience of it since then. My hon. Friend behind me reminds me that, when I was in the service of the union, there was a bull in Scotland called "Lock of Lockerbie," on account of which we could neither collect nor deliver letters, because it chased the postman, the postmaster and the police. What happened to that bull I do not know, but I am glad to have the Minister's tribute to the loyalty of the staff and the efficiency of the administration and the services generally.
While the Minister holds his present office, I am sure he will find the experience useful, and I hope it will be a happy one. I also hope that he will see a further development of the good relations between the staff and the administration, as well as a further improvement in the services to the public. I wish the hon. Gentleman well, but, when he comes to deal with this question of the recognition of trade unions, I hope he will accept responsibility for the administration, just as those outside shoulder their joint responsibilities.
I would finish with this word, though not all hon. Members will agree with me. I think that the late Sir Kingsley Wood was a great Postmaster-General, and that the hon. Gentleman has an excellent example there, if he will but follow it.

5.58 p.m.

Sir William Darling: I am afraid that I cannot emulate the air of dignity and paternalism towards the Post Office of which the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. Wallace), has just given us such an excellent example. The Post Office is the favourite child of those who believe in the collectivist system, but this is a debate on a Bill to provide for further money for the development of the Post Office, and I do not think that we can content ourselves with merely repeating agreeable platitudes about the admirable character of this long-established and traditional institution.
I have made myself familiar with the accounts, and it is not apparent in this debate so far that this institution, over the last 25 years, at any rate in one of its most important departments, has been suffering losses for successive years. I refer to the telegraph accounts, in which, in 1947, there was a loss of £1,900,000. Down the years to the present day, it has


continued to make losses and the latest figure is £4,193,000.
During these years these losses have reached the most majestic proportions, and have never fallen below £1,500,000. During the period of the Labour Government, in 1949–50, the loss on this department was £4,405,000. We ought to bear in mind in this debate that for 25 years this particular department has shown these losses, which have sometimes been round about £1 million and sometimes a very great deal more.
What is the Post Office but a series of multiple shops—a monopoly if ever there was one—handling certain selected services in its own way? They are the only shopkeepers in the United Kingdom whose staff have to be protected from the public by a wire screen. In any other shops, the staff apparently can control the public if they desire to do so, but the Postmaster-General has quite properly to protect the staff from the abuse or opposition which the public may offer.
This opposition is apparently lesser known in the banks. There, there is usually a glazed glass screen and a very wide counter over which persons cannot hope to vault. In a nationalised railway booking office there is a small pigeon hole through which the beak of the clerk barely emerges. This, to me, has some very considerable significance.
When I look at the revenue accounts—if, in these purist days one may look at them—I see that Her Majesty's Government drew £750,000 from pool revenue alone. While casting a Calvanistic eye on these evildoers, we must recognise the advantages which the pools apparently produce for our purposes. I notice the astonishing figure of .02 per cent. is all that the General Post Office raises out of advertising. It is not for me to put forward claims for advertising, but if any other businessman possessed these thousands of branches and tens of thousands of employees and the resources they have for presenting their wares to the public, surely the advertising revenue would be very much greater than .02 per cent. of the total revenue. It is a little better this year than it was.
I have tried to find in the accounts what were the sales of small books of assorted stamps, but I cannot find the information. It seems to me that there

is a considerable field there for increasing revenue. The Postmaster-General is placing a restriction on the issue of telephone directories. They were a useful medium of advertising and their restriction must limit the amount of advertising revenue he collects. I do not know any reason why he cannot explore these possibilities of getting additional revenue.
I would like to refer to the speech of the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards), who announced a new theory about Treasury control. This seems to me to be the beginning of a new school of economics domiciled in Wales. In these Ebbw Vale economics there is no control over any of the Government's spending Departments or, indeed, of the Government earning Departments. There is a new attack developing against Treasury control and against Treasury officials. I have seen Treasury officials. They have noses and some are baldheaded, like the right hon. Gentleman. They are, however, all too human and this talk about Treasury officials seems to be almost as ignorant as it is unkind. These are the men and women to whom the taxpayer looks to look after his interests.
Those who are opposed to the withdrawing of all controls but want to remove the control of the Treasury seem to be in a unique position, in which I do not envy them. We on this side of the House are anxious to remove controls, but Her Majesty's Opposition apparently have only one control which they want to remove and it is a desire shared by burglars and other sorts of depredators. The control which they want to remove is the control of the purse.
I think that this is a new form of economics which inspired the eloquent advocacy of the right hon. Member for Caerphilly is one which we should watch with care. To suggest that the Treasury is the enemy of the people is fallacious. Such poor saving as there is in this overtaxed and overburdened community is due to the efforts of the Treasury in preventing Departments from spending unwisely.
I am happy to find myself in agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East, who has for so many years given his services to the Post Office and still does. I am in agreement with


him over £24 million. It is fantastic that the Post Office should not render an account to each Department for its service. The suggestion was that it would take a great deal of manpower. After all, how many Government Departments are there? There are too many, I agree, but not more than 10 or 12, and 10 or 12 annual accounts should not be beyond the present resources of the Post Office, without adding largely to the staff. If the charge was put through as it should be, Ministries of the Crown would doubtless get into the habit of saying to their staff, "Do not phone; a letter costs less," and in that way a very considerable amount of public saving would result.
I support the right hon. Member for Caerphilly in his suggestion that the time has come—it comes every now and then—to look again at the constitution and management of this remarkable institution. Another Bridgeman Committee may not he out of place. The right hon. Gentleman may not be as happy as I am in agreeing with him. Has this monopoly been justified? Has not the considerable success of the Hull telephone service, or the great Bell service in the United States, thrown a lurid light on the competence or otherwise of Her Majesty's Post Office monopoly to deal with letters, telephones and telegrams? Is this a static society in which we live? Have the Labour Party done right in putting this forward as the ideal method of social and economic organisation? I am not inclined to think so.
I do not believe that this is an adequate public service. The public expect a great deal from it, and it falls short in many directions. The suggestion that we should abandon Treasury control and allow the present managers of the Post Office to act, no matter whether their business pays or does not pay, is one to which I cannot subscribe. I hope that the Postmaster-General and the Assistant Postmaster-General will take a commercial view of the General Post Office, because nothing would give more pride to those who carry out this great service than to know that they were not dependent on the State and that they paid their way.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Williams: I am sorry that the few points which I want to put forward do not follow quite the same direction as those suggested by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Sir W. Darling). I only wish that I had the time to follow up the three or four arguments which he has adduced, but I am happy enough that he has cancelled himself out and that there is not much need for anyone else to do it for him. However, it is interesting to hear him, and perhaps at some time he will take it into his head to go into the post offices so that he may be accurately informed.
I must wish the Assistant Postmaster-General well. As one who has been connected with the Post Office in one form and another for 40 years, I wish him well, but that does not mean that I wish him to be in office very long. I want him to be as happy with the postal staff and the administration as some of his predecessors have been, Mr. Speaker, not excluding yourself.
I am very glad to know that the hon. Gentleman has been converted since I was in this House previously. I have very vivid recollections of the part which the hon. Gentleman took as a critic of the Post Office in the 1945–50 Parliament, and I am glad to find that he has now been converted from some of the ideas which, in my opinion, he then wrongly held. In other words, he came to scoff and has remained to praise, and to praise very fulsomely.
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has noticed the remarkably high standard of negotiations in the Post Office. I am sure that in the brief period that he has been at the Post Office he must have been impressed very much by the skill on both sides in negotiations in the Post Office. As an aside, if the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South—

Sir W. Darling: I am listening, but it does not help much.

Mr. Williams: The trouble is that we cannot deal with all the hon. Member's idiosyncrasies at the same time. I do not believe I can be challenged when I say that it would not do private industry or even nationalised industries any harm to study carefully the methods of negotiation and discussion of problems of the Post Office through Whitley


committees and direct negotiations between the Post Office and the trade unions concerned. I am glad that one of the first impressions of the hon. Gentleman in the Post Office has been of the high standard of negotiation.
I am also glad that he has noticed the tremendous and remarkable recovery which has taken place in the Post Office during the last five or six years. There is no need for the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South, to frown; this is a statement of fact. I am now referring to the recovery since the war. Some of us remember the difficulties which existed in the Post Office, not least the major re-organisation, which had to be undertaken at a time when a large number of established and experienced staff were serving with the Colours overseas.

Sir W. Darling: I am sure that the hon. Member does not wish to mislead the House. The Post Office's surplus in 1945 was £39,850,000 whereas the surplus in 1950–51, after six years of Labour administration, was £12,574,000.

Mr. Williams: The hon. Member is typically Scottish, in that he has no soul above money. I was not talking about surpluses. I thought I was dealing with something which was of great interest to the House, the recovery of the services and possibilities of development in the Post Office in the years after the war. The Post Office had been largely disorganised in the interests of the war effort.

Sir W. Darling: Since the Post Office's surplus at the end of the war was £39 million and in 1950–51 only £12 million, it does not look as if the Post Office was so completely disorganised.

Mr. Williams: I must leave this subject for the hon. Member to study a little more. He might then be more intelligent in his criticisms.
I am glad that the Assistant Postmaster-General has recognised the tremendous recovery which has taken place. The recovery and the re-organisation would not have taken place effectively had it not been for the very close co-operation of many of the trade unions with which some of us have been associated. I hope

that neither the Assistant Postmaster-General nor the Administration will forget the services of some of these unions when they consider the Terrington Report. The unions accepted tremendous responsibilities and went to successive conferences with the aim of carrying their members with them in the interests of the efficiency of the Department, whereas other organisations snapped at their heels and criticised.
The hon. Gentleman did not say very much about Cable and Wireless, apart from the transfer. I shall not for obvious reasons—the hon. Member knows them as well as I do—say anything more than that I sincerely hope that the integration which has taken place under the transfer of 1st April, 1950, will proceed smoothly, because I believe there are great possibilities in the newly integrated service from the points of view of both the public and the Department. I sincerely hope that some of the small difficulties which have been encountered in recent months will disappear.
I wish to deal with sick leave. No one desires to see excessive sick leave anywhere. When the Assistant Postmaster-General replied to a Question not long ago, I asked how sick leave in the Post Office compared with sick leave in other Government Departments and in private industry, and he was unable at the time to give me an answer. I should have thought that he would have been making inquiries since then so that we might know how it compares. I shall not develop the matter any further, but I am sure that the trade unions concerned with the Department will look very carefully into the matter.
I could advance a number of reasons for the present situation. There is no doubt that the standard of post-war recruitment, owing to the money which was being paid in many of the grades, had to be sub-standard, and obviously the physical standards have been lower than those before the war. We are now reaping the result of the recruitment to sub-normal physical standards.
A number of difficulties have arisen in connection with extra time and overtime, and with the complete re-organisation of the major grades in the Post Office. However, I leave that point, believing that, if there is excessive sick leave and


it can be remedied, the two sides, as usual, will find a way of overcoming the difficulty.
I believe that the Assistant Postmaster-General is taking the right decision about the settlement of inter-Departmental services in reverting to the 1943 method, which was a very good one. Unlike some of my hon. Friends, I believe that the Post Office can extend still further its services to other Government Departments, and I do not believe that we should be contracting these services. I know of no better agency than the Post Office to carry out these many functions effectively, efficiently and economically.

Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing: It should charge for them.

Mr. Williams: It should charge the actual cost of the services. I agree that, if the Post Office was charging the actual cost, many Government Departments would not be over-using telegrams, telephones and postal to the extent which they are now doing. There is no doubt that the fact that they are getting so much for so little encourages them to take advantage of the situation, possibly to the detriment of other people who wish to make use of the services.
I have very mixed feelings about Treasury control. Some of my hon. Friends are very keen to do away with a great deal of Treasury control. I go some way with them. I believe that sometimes many useful projects are held back and unduly deferred because of the time involved in consulting the Treasury, and there is room for a good deal of improvement in that direction.
However, I am not one to say that we should altogether do away with Treasury control or a major part of Treasury control, this ought to give some satisfaction to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South. But I do believe that the Postmaster-General and the Administration ought to have more liberty to deal with matters which are specifically calculated to improve the service without there being a dead hand deferring the action which they might be taking.
I am sorry that the Assistant Postmaster-General has come here today with such a gloomy picture of capital development. It is all very well to say that the Post Office is not going to build any more sorting offices or telephone

exchanges in the course of the next financial year, but that is harmful not only to the Post Office but industry generally.
The emphasis today is on national recovery and on increased and improved efficiency in industry generally. How is that to be achieved if we are to delay the transmission of communications that are inherent in, and an integral part of, the contribution of industry? I do not understand how the Postmaster-General and the Assistant Postmaster-General accepted this Treasury dictum without a tremendous fight.
The hon. Gentleman ought to go back to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and say, "You are really working against the best interests of the nation when you refuse to allow the Post Office to expand and extend in order to meet the natural, rational and essential requirements of industry." This House ought to put that suggestion to the hon. Member, because in productivity and prosperity the Post Office has to play a still greater part, and I am one of those who know just how much it has done in the past few years.
I have listened to a number of hon. Members decrying what has been done in the way of installations for new telephone subscribers. I know that never in the history of the Post Office have so many people been supplied with telephone installations in such a short time as is the case in recent years.
I am sorry that I have taken up more time than I intended. I will leave my remaining points for another time, and I will finish as I began. I sincerely hope that next year will be a year of great achievement in the Post Office. I know that the staff have a great deal of pride in their work, and I am proud that the oldest nationalised industry in this country can stand the test so successfully in efficiency and overall effectiveness in comparison with other industries in this land, and that it is playing such an important and essential part in the industrial, economic and social life of this country.

6.23 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Marlowe: The hon. Member for Droylsden (Mr. W. R. Williams) speaks with great knowledge and authority on many of these matters, particularly on staff problems. He has referred to the Terrington Report, about which I want to say a few words this


evening. I do not propose to develop my arguments very far in view of the fact that the Report is still under consideration by the Postmaster-General and by the Assistant Postmaster-General; but I think it needs to be said from this side of the House that there are many of us sitting behind the Assistant Postmaster-General who view the recommendations of that Report with great disfavour.
I remember that in the last Parliament and in the Parliament before that my hon. Friend who is now the Assistant Postmaster-General was one of those who was extremely active in the attacks made upon the then Postmaster-General to ensure that proper recognition should be given to the telecommunications officers' union. There was a well understood rule in the Post Office that a 40 per cent. basis of membership of a union should earn recognition.
The previous Postmaster-General changed the rules in the middle of the game. When he found that he met with further difficulties, he resorted to the device of referring the matter to the Terrington Committee in the hope that the Committee would make a report favourable to his point of view and get him out of the dilemma in which he found himself.

Mr. Wallace: Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the Report makes it perfectly clear that, in the granting of recognition to Post Office workers, the only consideration shall not be a percentage or an arithmetical basis but other considerations?

Mr. Marlowe: But that is exactly my objection to it. I said that there have been a well-understood rule about a percentage basis, and now a new device—

Mr. R. E. Winterbottom: rose—

Mr. Marlowe: No, I cannot give way. I had promised to give way to the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. Wallace), who knows so much about these matters. The point is that a new device is being tried out to try to avoid what was a well-understood rule.
I only want to make one further observation about the Report. Surely the true test of whether people ought to join together in an association, whether a trade

union or any other body which wished to be dealt with as representing a particular section of the community, is that of their own choice; and they should be allowed to join in a free association if they so desire.
What is happening in this matter is that administrative convenience for the Post Office is the basis of the new arrangement. They find it more convenient to deal with a fewer number of trade unions. The result must be to get people conglomerated together more and more into larger and larger unions, resulting in further and further limitations on human liberty. I hold firmly to the belief that if people wish to join together in a trade union and make their own point of view felt, then they ought to be free to do so.
I wish to refer to one other matter to which I have called attention on a number of occasions, the question of a shared telephone service. The Postmaster-General referred to the actual physical problems which arise and which cause the necessity for shared lines. Of course, all those difficulties do not arise on the provision of the party line.
I would ask my hon. Friend to reconsider the matter of allocating party lines. He gave us a short list today of those who are exempted from the rule requiring acceptance of a shared line at a residential address. I would ask him to overhaul that list to see whether he ought not to give an unshared line to a larger body of persons. Doctors, for instance, ought to be included in the list of those exempted, as should clergymen. In my own constituency there is a clergyman who is not included, and that is one of the reasons why I raise this matter.
Some professional people ought to be allowed to have private lines to their homes, particularly when they carry on their business after office hours. My hon. Friend will remember a case which I submitted to him of a clerk to a local authority who had to use his telephone frequently to speak to one councillor of a local authority, perhaps about another councillor of the same local authority. Yet he was not allowed a private line, and that made his business extremely difficult. It ought to be possible to arrive at a suitable list of exceptions to the rule which was made in January, 1948; and where experience shows that there are


justifiable exceptions then those exceptions ought to be allowed.
It is wrong for my hon. Friend to suppose that there is no objection to the use of the shared line. Whenever any of us take up any of these cases with the Post Office—and this is common to the present Administration and to the last—we get back a soothing letter that they are quite sure that if one of the parties to a shared line is engaged in conversation and the other party happens to lift the receiver at that time, that person will immediately replace the receiver and not listen in to the conversation. That is absolute rubbish.
I thought my hon. Friend had a better understanding of human nature than that. Surely he ought to know that inquisitiveness about one's neighbour's business is a characteristic of the British people.

Mr. Royle: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman referring to Hove?

Mr. Marlowe: I refer to Hove and other parts of the country as well. What I am saying is applicable to Hove as well as to every other part of the country. If the hon. Gentleman says that in his part of the country it does not exist, I say that that is humbug and hypocrisy, and he knows it.
This debate has been confined almost entirely to the telephone and telegraph services, but the Bill affects broadcasting to some extent. I therefore hope that my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General will once again look at the difficult problems of sound and television reception on the South Coast. It is very difficult, and nobody seems to know the causes of the difficulty. The matter certainly requires attention and I hope that my hon. Friend will see that the very worthy people who live along the South Coast are provided with efficient services of both kinds.

6.33 p.m.

Mr. R. E. Winterbottom: Having regard to the hour, and knowing that the debate ought to finish at 7 o'Clock, I shall be very brief indeed. I would refer only to what was said about the Terrington Committee, because it needs some reply. I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe) will excuse me if I do not go at great length into the matter.
The Listowel formula, as it was in the original conception, was the subject of controversy which caused my right hon. Friend the then Postmaster-General to set up the Terrington Committee. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman would question the integrity of that Committee, its impartial nature or the impartial nature of its findings. If he does not like the findings, he will have an opportunity to say so when the debate takes place. The Committee was approved almost unanimously on all sides of this House, so the remarks which have been made have been out of place.
My speech has gone to the wall, but there are one or two questions that I want to put to the Assistant Postmaster-General. I would have raised them in my speech, and I hope that he will find time for a reply to them. If he is unable to reply by reason of time, I hope that he will write to me and let me know the answers. Here are the questions: What is he going to do with the Motor Repair Department, at Yeading, near Slough? Is the Organisation and Methods Department still to function? If not, what is to take its place?
Will the hon. Gentleman tell us why he omitted to mention the Clothing Supply Depot and will he tell us whether or not the Post Office will get the profit from it in future; or whether the benefits will automatically go to the Treasury? How will they be shown, either in the cash accounts or the commercial accounts?
Those are the problems on which a reply is called for. Having regard to the fact that my hon. Friend the ex-Assistant Postmaster-General wants to take part in the debate, and knows much more about the Post Office than I do. I am prepared to give way to him.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: There has been a unanimous description of the opening speech of the Assistant Postmaster-General, namely, its gloom. I am beginning to wonder, having heard it and the comments, whether "gloom" is the right word. I would suggest "dangerous darkness." If anything is clear from the speech of the hon. Gentleman and from this Bill, as well as from the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer about increased charges for telephone and postal services, it is that those services are to cost us more. It is also clear that


those services are to be less efficient, dangerously less efficient.
The capital expenditure suggested for next year is £48 million. The hon. Gentleman said that one-third of that was to be for defence purposes. That brings us right down to the capital expenditure for the past year. There is a long-term building and extension programme going on, but everyone knows that the cost of building is increasing.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that no new building could be started. The projects already started will presumably be completed, but at an increased price. The capital investment programme and the civilian side of the postal and telephone services will be very much less than they have been. It is obvious that the development is being cut down and that the hon. Gentleman will be very lucky if he is able to maintain the telephone service at its present standard of efficiency.
References have been made by hon. Gentlemen opposite to the kind of telephone services in America and elsewhere, but I think that the Assistant Postmaster-General has been long enough in his post to know—although he showed very little sign of knowing it when he was on this side of the House—that British postal research workers and experts could provide Britain with a far better telephone service than exists in America if it were not for the limitation on capital expenditure.
The picture we have had of the future capital expenditure does not mean a slowing up of expansion, but the cutting down of the existing system. We were held back by the war and by post-war difficulties, and we shall be held back now by defence; but we have gone too far. The hon. Gentleman and his noble Friend should be much more aggressive in their attitude to the Treasury on this cutting down of capital expenditure for the Post Office, which is not getting a fair deal in this matter. We are risking the efficiency of the postal and telephone system.
Some people have made complaints about them already, although the demand for telephones has been rising every year. The hon. Gentleman said that the telephone waiting-list was something like 487,000 at present, and that it was 57,000

fewer than last year. How did we achieve that reduction? Was it because the annual demand for telephones, which has been running at about 200,000 since the end of the war, has suddenly slowed down, or that last year we did very well in the provision of new installations?
If this is the case, next year will be a bad one. The suggestion has been made that we are to have only one-fifth of the waiting list satisfied next year, or about 97,000. Place that against the cutting down of which the hon. Gentleman told us, and it means that he will achieve one record of which he should not be very proud, that he will have the highest waiting list for telephones next year that we have ever had. I can count on my two hands the number of Conservative Members who are in the House today, but two years ago, when a storm was raised from this side of the House, there was not enough time for them all to push home the propaganda point. Then they did not consider the difficulties of defence or anything else; it was just a case of hitting at the Government.
We are a little more considerate this time. I am only pressing the point today which I pressed on my right hon. Friend on that occasion, namely, that the Post Office is entitled to get a greater share of the capital expenditure that is permissible in the present year. I do not want to see the waiting list rising as high as that, and to have the hon. Gentleman coming to the House and telling us that any new telephones we are to get will be on the party system.
The hon. Member who spoke in praise of the American system obviously did not listen to his neighbour, the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter), who knows the meaning of the party line, which is such a feature of the American and Canadian systems. We do not want the party line system introduced into this country to any extent. I think the hon. Member said there were over 300,000 subscribers on the shared line. It may be that we shall have to suffer it for a year or two.
I want to look at the question of priorities and also the question of accepting a shared line. I think that first on the list which the hon. Gentleman gave us was the businessman, and then came judges and Members of Parliament. They were the only people entitled to be considered as having other than party lines.


Does the businessman include the farmer? I can say that the farmers of Ayrshire do not want to share their lines. We are a very insular people as a nation, and as individuals and localities we are equally insular. We like to have the privacy of our own telephone system with no possibility of anyone listening in.
I want to put a case to the hon. Gentleman which came to my notice the other day. It shocked me. It was the case of a man in Ayr who has been a subscriber since 1938. In September last he moved his home to another house 100 yards away, in a side road. He was immediately informed that his telephone could not be transferred there because it was in another distribution area and a line could not be taken across the road. It was suggested to him that he ought to ask his friends to share their line with him. He probably did that in a half-hearted way because it is not an easy thing to ask, and it has to be put in such a way that someone else will volunteer to do it. However, they were prepared to do that. Not long afterwards someone moved out who had a telephone between his house and the house where it was suggested he should get a shared line, and left a telephone, but there seemed to be nothing to prevent them from transferring that telephone.
The man is not a businessman but this is what he does as part of his public duties. He is a member of the South Ayrshire Hospital Board, a member of the St. Andrew's Ambulance Association, a member of the Co-ordinating Committee for Ayrshire, a justice of the peace for Ayrshire, a member of the juvenile court for Ayrshire, a member of the local tribunal of the Ayr area under the National Insurance Act. He was also national President of the C.I.S., agents of U.S.D.A.W., with 7,000 members and 200 branches.

Mr. Grey: What does he do in his spare time?

Mr. Ross: He is a typical person who spends as much time as he can in helping his fellow men. He also happened to be, at the Election before last, Labour candidate for Ayr. Maybe that is why I got the letter and not the hon. Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore). It is obvious from the facts I have given that this man should have his telephone transferred. That is not an impracticable proposition.
What I have described is the kind of thing which starts people wondering exactly what is happening within the Post Office.

Sir W. Darling: I suggest that he becomes a Member for Parliament and then, in due course, he will get a telephone.

Mr. Ross: I can only suggest that if he transfers his attack to South Edinburgh, he will probably have a chance of becoming a Member of Parliament.
I support the Bill, but I regret the implications and explanations which the hon. Gentleman has given us. Unless we get increased capital expenditure there will be the great disadvantage that within the next few years we shall have a considerably less efficient postal and telephone service, and one liable to a considerable amount of breakdown.

6.46 p.m.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: We are discussing the bi-annual Post Office and Telegraph (Money) Bill which makes provision for the capital investment of the Post Office for the next two years. The Bill informs us that the total capital investment, that is the money required by loan, is to be £75 million, £69 million of which is to be for the telephone service and £6 million for the postal and telegraph services. The quandary in which my right hon. Friend and hon. Friends behind me find themselves is how we can agree to this sum or, indeed, consider an amendment to the Bill, if we do not know what the capital allocation is to be.
As late as last Wednesday I tabled a Question to the hon. Gentleman asking him in precise terms what was to be the capital allocation for the Post Office during the ensuing year. To say the least of it the reply was disingenuous. The hon. Gentleman was unable to give the figure and he referred me to the reply given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro). That reply was in the following terms:
The Government have laid down ceilings for investment by the nationalised industries. In doing so they have had regard to the basic character of these industries."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th March, 1952; Vol. 498, c. 30.]
If the Chancellor of the Exchequer could give that reply, surely we could be informed what the capital investment expenditure will be for the Post Office in


the ensuing year? What has gone wrong in the co-ordination between the two Departments? What does the Bill say? That for 1952–53 capital expenditure is likely to be about £48 million and for 1953–54 about £50 million. So the reply that ought to have been given to that Question, and the reply that ought to have been made by the Chancellor, was that the estimated capital investment for the Post Office for this year is to be at the rate of £48 million.
Here again my hon. Friends are in a quandary because the Bill was published and read the First time before my Question was tabled or the reply I have quoted was given to the hon. Member for Kidderminster. The hon. Gentleman and his noble Friend must make up their minds as to how much money will be spent by the Post Office. They are in duty bound to inform the House what that sum will be, and I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would tell us the answer truthfully when he replies.
Is it that the figure is not known, according to his own statement of last Wednesday? Or is it known, as implied in the nebulous reply given by the Chancellor? Or are my hon. Friends to believe the Financial Memorandum to the Bill? We want to know what that sum is to be.
Of course, it may be that the amount is not yet decided and that it is to be left to one of the co-ordinating Ministers in the other place, of whom the hon. Gentleman's noble Friend is not one. We feel, as was stressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), that even the sum which is asked for is too small. It is utterly inadequate to deal with the waiting list of applicants for telephone service and the growth of the trunk network, which, I believe, is increasing at the rate of 7 or 8 per cent. annually and which has doubled since 1939, and the provision of any new telephone exchanges. We are now told that no new exchanges whatever are to be provided. This means that the position will become progressively worse.
Then there is the urgent need for new post offices. What is to happen at Plymouth, where the post office was totally

destroyed by enemy action and the project for the replacement of which my right hon. Friend agreed, when he was in office, after conferring with the local authorities, should go ahead? My hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle), raised the question of Salford, and one could go on asking these questions. The fact remains that there is an urgent necessity for new post office buildings and for going ahead with telephone exchanges.
We have always had objections, particularly from hon. Members opposite, that the Post Office was used as an instrument of taxation. I suggest that it is today being used for that purpose as a result of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget statement. The last published commercial accounts showed a surplus of £12½ million. The hon. Gentleman tells us that that figure has been reduced because of the recent wage awards. That may be so, but after my five years at the Post Office I suggest that the increased charges now to be made will provide a considerably greater surplus next year than the £7 million of which the hon. Gentleman has told us this afternoon.
What about the Post Office Fund? Is it to be resuscitated? It would be a very good thing, when there is a considerable surplus from the operations of the Post Office, for money to be placed into the Fund and used for capital development. In other words, there would be an appropriation of profit as we went along, with a corresponding saving in interest which would be to the general benefit, not only of the Post Office, but of everyone who uses the Post Office facilities. I should like to know whether the hon. Gentleman has given consideration to this aspect of Post Office finance.
Now, I come to the vexed question of telephones. The hon. Gentleman is aware of the size of the waiting list—roughly 500,000—and will now realise what are the real difficulties which prevented my right hon. Friend from wiping it out. It may also have dawned upon the Assistant Postmaster-General what are the difficulties at the Tudor and Clissold Exchanges, about which he was very vociferous in his Questions when on this side of the House, and very intolerant also.
We appreciate, of course, the cause of the shortages. They are due to lack of


cable, equipment and buildings—any one of those items or a combination of all three. The reason why we are short of cable, equipment and buildings is that since the end of the war, it has been necessary to plan our capital investment. It is very interesting to hear hon. Gentlemen opposite defending that action, particularly when we remember what they had to say about planning and how they scoffed at it when there were on this side of the House.
The hon. Gentleman knows that he cannot get very far in the Post Office, particularly in the provision of telephones, without planning. Has the plan gone by the board, in view of the fact that we do not know how much the hon. Gentleman is going to spend? The future is, indeed, grim.
When I was at the Post Office and inquiring about the amount of capital that would be required to wipe out the waiting list and to maintain the growth of trunk developments, I was told that the figure would be in the region of £300 million, spread over four years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock has said, the waiting lists will now go up by leaps and bounds.
I must remind the Assistant Postmaster-General of what was accomplished by my right hon. Friends the Members for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wilfred Paling) and Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) when they were at the Post Office. One in three of the telephones were installed during the period of a Socialist Administration. In 1938, there were 65 telephones to 1,000 of the population. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly gave up his office, there were 103 telephones per 1,000 of the population. Something like 5,000 telephone kiosks were provided in two years, 2,000 of them in rural areas, and service was provided for over 12,000 farms. That was a very fine record.
I join with the hon. Gentlemen in paying my tribute to the way in which the Post Office engineers planned ahead before the war. The results are a tribute to their foresight, and are proof that they were not clamped down by the terrible bureaucracy which is alleged to exist in nationalised undertakings.
The shared service is, undoubtedly, the reason why the waiting list is less than it was a year ago. That service was

introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dearne Valley. I should like to know from the hon. Gentleman what progress is being made towards separate accounting for local calls, because this is a matter which leads to difficulties between people who are sharing the service.
I come now to the question of the speed of answering. During the whole time my right hon. Friend was at the Post Office there was an improvement, even at the Tudor Exchange, although I believe there was something of a shock when it was known that the hon. Gentleman had become Assistant Postmaster-General. We should like to know what progress has been made with automatic switching for trunk services to avoid the intermediate operator. Has this yet been completed in London? These are the things about which the hon. Gentleman ought to have told us, instead of telling us about helicopters and submarine repeaters and then giving precisely the same reply as I gave in 1950 when I was replying to the debate.
It is not good enough for the hon. Gentleman to come to the House and to build up a pack of cards, and then proceed verbally to knock them down by dialectics. It would have been far better had he addressed himself to some of these technical developments which are taking place in the Post Office.
Now, I come to the deficit of £4,393,000 on telegrams. The telegraph service cannot be run without a deficit. We have to maintain the service for two reasons: first, for strategic requirements, and second, because it is the poor man's telephone. The hon. Gentleman will, I think, agree that one of the reasons why there has been a reduction in the deficit is the introduction of the greetings telegrams, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly introduced when he was Postmaster-General.
There has been considerable saving through the mechanisation of the delivery of telegrams due to the introduction of the motor cycle delivery service, and also because of the development of the switching service whereby, using the teleprinter, one can get through direct to another office. I ask the hon. Gentleman to insist on separate accounting for the telegraph system. I know that at headquarters there is an opinion that it would


be a good idea if the telegraph accounts were merged with the telephone accounts, but I do not think it would be a good idea. We ought to know precisely the position in regard to the telegraph service and I hope that the present system will be continued.
There have been difficulties in regard to the phonogram service and delays have been rather extensive. I would like to know what is the present position because the phonogram is used largely by the business community. I would like to know if there has been an improvement in the speed of answer.
One thing which the hon. Gentleman did not touch upon, although he might have done and it would have helped his case, is the urgent need to maintain exports of telecommunications equipment. About 50 per cent. of the telecommunications equipment is exported. A lot goes to dollar areas, and that which goes to the sterling area saves dollars by proxy and prevents competition from dollar sources.
On the postal side the work is growing, and I think the hon. Gentleman might have paid tribute to my right hon. Friend for the fact that later collections were introduced, because there is no doubt that that gave great help to the business community. Will it be possible to improve the postal service, particularly in the Midlands area? It might be possible now, unfortunately because of growing unemployment, to get staff to improve the service in Birmingham and Coventry, which have operated under great difficulty owing to shortage of staff and inability to recruit labour.
Reference has been made to Dollis Hill. I have a particular interest in Dollis Hill; I happened to be present, as a youthful councillor, when it was opened in 1931. I probably got on my house the bomb which was intended for the research station, but I forgive the Post Office for that. What is being done at Dollis Hill now?
I want a straight answer because I notice that the Ministry of Supply have entered the field of telecommunications research. In my trade union journal they are advertising for fitters, millers and various other skilled men. Why do they want to carry out this work? It could be done at Dollis Hill and has been done

at Dollis Hill, and I say they are preeminent in telecommunications research. Why should the Ministry of Supply start work in that field? I hope that the hon. Gentleman will look into that question.
The hon. Gentleman referred to a submarine repeater being put into the Dutch cable, but there was one placed in the South Atlantic cable, the first ever to be placed at considerable depth. It was developed at Dollis Hill and I should like to know how that submarine repeater is working, because it certainly was the pioneer one in under-sea communications.
I now come to the question of Cable and Wireless. Here the hon. Gentleman is in a little of a dilemma because no one attacked Cable and Wireless more than he. I have an article which he wrote, on 26th February, 1951, in the "South China Morning Post." I am not going to weary the House by reading it, but I think it was doctrinaire, ill-informed and spiteful, and he would do well to take an early opportunity of repudiating the sentiments contained in that article, particularly if he wishes to have good staff relationships in Cable and Wireless.
It is rather unfortunate for the hon. Gentleman that the wheel has turned full circle and he is faced with the fact that he knows Cable and Wireless is now a highly efficient service and that its integration into the Post Office went through very smoothly. He is also aware that there is little he can do about it because when he wrote the article he was probably unaware that it was due to the Australian Government objecting to the set-up of the existing telecommunications; and that they insisted on the amalgamation of the shore ends and the operation of the independent company for the foreign service.
The hon. Member referred to the relaying of the Atlantic cable. Am I to understand that £3 million is to be made available out of capital expenditure this year, or is it merely to be repaired, because a new cable would cost £3 million? I should like to know the facts about that.
I wish to ask what are the intentions of the Government in regard to bulk purchase. In his position as Assistant Postmaster-General, the hon. Gentleman is Chairman of the Contracts Committee and, therefore, he knows that many of the Post Office supplies are bought in


bulk and that that has worked very satisfactorily in the past. The officers of the Post Office were subject to cross-examination by the Public Accounts Committee on this subject.
Am I to take it that bulk purchase is to continue, or is to be done away with? Here again, the hon. Gentleman is in a difficult position as the party opposite made it on of their Election promises that bulk purchase would be immediately stopped when they came into power. We should like to know his intentions.
My right hon. Friend referred to the fact that we shall desire to have something to say on the Postal and Telegraphic Regulations. I can also tell the hon. Gentleman that we shall have something to say on the report on regionalisation. I do not want to deal with that matter this evening, but we intend to find an opportunity to have a discussion on that report.
Finally, I pay tribute to the staff of the Post Office. They are a fine body of men. There are one or two things which stand out in the last year. One was the splendid way in which they dealt with the hurricane damage in the Orkneys and Shetlands and in the North of Scotland. The communications were entirely disrupted but very quickly indeed communications were resumed and brought back to normal.
Whoever was in charge of that operation showed initiative and the men showed that they were willing and swift to work in a way which we have come to associate with the Post Office. Another thing which was well done was the alteration of all the weights in the telephone call boxes for the purpose of acting under the weight of three coins instead of two. That too went smoothly and very expeditiously.
As has been said, they are a fine body of men in the Post Office, and at headquarters the hon. Gentleman has a fine body of advisers. I hope he will always listen to their advice, because they have the welfare of this great national service at heart. We shall watch the Assistant Postmaster-General very carefully and when he ceases to fill that office we shall expect the British Post Office to be preeminent in the world, as it is now.

7.10 p.m.

Mr. Gammans: I trust I may have the leave of the House to reply briefly to some of the questions which have been raised in this debate. I would first deal

with the points raised by the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards). He objected because defence works which the Post Office has to carry out are not carried on the Votes of the Defence Departments. I wish they were. But there is this point about it. Although I said that these defence works would not be of very much use for the civilian population in the near future, that does not mean that they will not be ultimately in fact, I am glad to say that a lot of them will be useful later on for civilian purposes. That is one reason why it is difficult to draw a clear line between the two.
The right hon. Gentleman also objected to the words in the Bill which dealt with control by the Treasury. I think that there his memory has slipped a bit, because they are almost exactly the words with which he introduced his Bill two years ago. I assure him that the Treasury control is no better and no worse than when he introduced his Bill. He also suggested that the time might come when the whole basis of the Post Office constitution might be looked at again. He considers that we might have another Bridgeman Committee. I think there is something in that. I do not want to go any further and suggest that that is going to happen, but I agree that a great organisation such as the Post Office should, from time to time, have the sort of close and expert examination that it had before.
The right hon. Gentleman and several other hon. Members raised the question of the charges which might be made to other Departments for services rendered. I would point out that, so far as the postal services are concerned, that is done at cost and telephones and telegraphs at ordinary rates. As I said, I wish that could happen. It would be a good thing from the point of view of the Post Office accounts, and it might not be a bad thing from the point of view of the Departments concerned. But I would correct him in that I do not think very much progress was made in getting agreement on that point before he went out of office. He also raised the question—

Mr. Ness Edwards: I am speaking from memory; but I am certain that agreement had been reached with regard to certain elements of these charges, that they should be treated on a cash basis.


I agree that agreement was made politically, but I understood that it had been passed to the officers of the hon. Gentleman's Department.

Mr. Gammans: I do not think that is true, but we will not quibble about it. I should certainly like it to be done. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the tyre re-treading factory. I do not know the answer to his question now, but I will write to him on the subject.
My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll), who informed me that unfortunately he would have to leave the Chamber before I could reply, asked whether people other than Members of Parliament could see something of the work of the Post Office. The answer is, "Yes." We have local advisory committees, and any Chamber of Commerce, or Rotary Club, or anyone else who is prepared to take an interest in the work of the Post Office, is welcome to visit us, and we shall be delighted to see them. My hon. Friend also asked if more propaganda could be carried out to induce people to address their letters more clearly. On the whole I do not think the position is too bad. But I can assure him, or I would were he present, that anything we can do we shall do, if only for our own sake, because there is nothing which causes more trouble than a badly addressed letter.
The hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Grey) and the hon. Member for Gateshead, West (Mr. Hall) asked about television and radio on the North-east Coast. I would dispose of the point made by the hon. Member for Gateshead, West, who said that both my noble Friend and the right hon. Member for Caerphilly, when he was in office, despised the North-east Coast. That is absolute nonsense. Nothing would give us greater pleasure than to be able to overcome their difficulties.
Regarding television, as he knows, the decision was made by the last Government to postpone the television station at Pontop Pike. I am sure they were right then, and the Defence programme since has made it inevitable that we should follow the same policy. Then the hon. Member raised the question of shared radio wavelengths. That is a thing which concerns both the North-east Coast and Northern Ireland. Here again

nothing would give us greater pleasure than to be able to do something about it.
The truth is that we have 13 medium wavelengths. Every one of those wavelengths has been allocated and there is no chance of getting another medium wavelength. I see no hope whatever of a better sound service and radio service on the North-east Coast until we get a very-high frequency station.

Mr. Grey: Am I right in thinking that there have been wavelengths made available since the war, and still the Northeast have been denied a wavelength?

Mr. Gammans: That is not true. There is no wavelength available for the North-east Coast. May I repeat the assurance, which I hope will cheer up the hon. Member, made by my noble Friend when he met a delegation the other day from the local authorities from the North-east Coast? He said he was prepared to give a definite pledge that when conditions improved the North-east would be the first on the list for television, and, combined with that statement, that there would be a very high-frequency station in sound broadcasting, which would remove the difficulty arising from a shared wavelength.

Mr. Ernest Popplewell: Do I understand that this is the same pledge as was given by the hon. Gentleman's predecessor when he was in office? Do I now understand that the present Postmaster-General repudiates the pledge given by his predecessor on that particular point?

Mr. Gammans: I cannot say from memory in what words the pledge was given by the right hon. Gentleman, but I suggest that this pledge is perfectly clear. We do recognise that it is a bad situation when two areas have to share the same wavelength. I can understand the point of view of anyone on the Northeast Coast who wanted a television and who thought they were going to get one but now find that they are not getting one. But I do not think I can do more than give the pledge which has already been given.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I appreciate that the circumstances in the North Country are difficult, but I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that, with his noble Friend, he considers transferring the low-power


transmitter from Wenvoe to Pontop Pike as soon as a high-power transmitter has been installed.

Mr. Gammans: That suggestion has been made, but it is not so easy as that. We are making this decision only because of cuts in capital expenditure required for defence. If a high-frequency station is set up on the North-east Coast, and if a television link is set up there, no one could get very high-frequency without serious alterations to their present set. That is one of the factors we have to consider, because that would demand the use of rare raw materials and highly skilled labour which is required for the defence programme. I do not want to elaborate the point. I have given the assurance that the North-east Coast shall have priority both for very high frequency and also for television when the time comes.

Miss Irene Ward: May I ask whether my hon. Friend is aware that his noble Friend gave an additional pledge at the time when the local authorities and the Members of Parliament met him? The pledge given before was regarding television. But when we met him on 18th March he added the pledge of very high frequency. That was well received by the deputation. Also, would my hon. Friend take this opportunity of informing hon. Members of the northern group of Labour M.P.s that they were invited to attend that deputation but, for some unknown reason—

Mr. Grey: On a point of order. The question of a deputation has been mentioned. I should like to know what that has to do with this Bill.

Miss Ward: May I finish—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot have any talk about a deputation now. If the hon. Lady wishes to finish her remarks, she may.

Mr. Popplewell: Further to that point of order. In view of the allegation made by the hon. Member, might it not be as well to place on record that the northern group of Labour M.P.s already had a meeting arranged with the Postmaster-General, and that he postponed it and then refused to meet those Members. Later he agreed to meet Conservative Members and representatives of the local authorities. Much more will be heard

about this as time goes on, but I should like it to go on record to that effect.

Miss Ward: My hon. Friend—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is now making a speech in the middle of the speech by the Minister.

Miss Ward: No.

Mr. Speaker: That cannot be allowed. I ask the hon. Lady to conclude her remarks very speedily.

Miss Ward: I will end very speedily.

Mr. W. R. Williams: On a point of order. I should like to know whether it is in order for an hon. Member to refer to some other meeting and ostensibly to some agreed statement. An agreed statement has been issued about that deputation. It is not before this House. Therefore, how can hon. Members discuss something which is not before them?

Miss Ward: On that point of order—

Mr. Williams: Might I have an answer before the hon. Lady raises another question?

Mr. Speaker: I cannot say that anything is out of order until it has been said. I cannot express any opinion about it. I have no knowledge of the facts about this deputation, so I cannot say that it is out of order to mention it; but it is generally wise for hon. Members to distinguish between private conversations and those which are held in public.

Miss Ward: As my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General had given way to me, might I finish what I was saying? The Conservative Members had also arranged their meeting with the Postmaster-General, and the northern group of Labour M.P.s were re-invited to accompany them to that meeting.

Mr. Grey: On a point of order. Is it right for an hon. Member who has just come into the House to intervene now?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order. All this talk about a deputation seems to introduce a matter which is extraneous to the Bill. It might be possible and proper to allude to it in a casual, passing way, but we are now getting the attention of the House diverted from the Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," to the question of a deputation.

Mr. Gammans: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to intervene. The statement I read about the pledge made about the North-east Coast was the latest one given by the Postmaster-General. I refuse to be dragged into a party squabble at this hour as to who arranged a deputation and who would or would not go.

Mr. Grey: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Gammans: No. I have given way enough already.
The hon. Member for Walton (Mr. K. Thompson) raised the question of priorities for telephones. He said that often people who had newly applied for telephones appeared to get them before people who had been on the list for some time. That could easily happen. It simply means that these people who had applied at a later date happened to be in a road or an area where there was a fre line, and they could get on to the telephone before people who had been longer on the list in an area which was not so fortunate.
I will not refer to the Grand National—that has nothing to do with me—except to say that I hope, from a personal point of view, that it will still be possible for the race to be broadcast. The hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle), tried to drag me into a civil war in Lancashire. I gathered with regard to Salford that it was not so much that they were getting a bad service but that it was a matter of prestige. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is satisfied with the service. I should be only too glad to ask the regional director for that area to discuss postal, telephone and telegraph problems with him to see whether they can be improved.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter) asked if we had any remedy in the Post Officet for stopping women from talking. We have none. He himself is a great publicist. I am prepared to take him on on a cost-plus basis if he can guarantee results. He also made comments about the party lines. I do not want to keep on saying this, but it is clear from one or two remarks in this debate that even now there are hon. Members who do not understand the position. Every subscriber gets his own number and he also gets his own bell. I

assure the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Hobson) that he also gets his own bill.

Mr. Hobson: I think that the hon. Gentleman is mistaken. Surely, the fact is that, with people sharing a party line on an automatic exchange, the bill goes to one subscriber and the two people have to arrange the matter between them. I was asking the hon. Gentleman to get some form of equipment which would guarantee separate accounting for each subscriber to a party line.

Mr. Gammans: The hon. Gentleman knows that separate accounting is already done in respect of trunk and toll calls. It is hoped to do something about dialled local calls before long. I do not think that hon. Gentlemen realise that, although we should prefer that everybody had an exclusive line, so long as there is a limitation on capital expenditure we have to say to the private subscriber, "You can have a shared line or none." The fact that many subscribers prefer that, and that we get very few complaints, is proof that in these difficult times we are fulfilling a need.
I discovered the other day that of every five people with a telephone, one of them does not use it more than four times a week. That means that there is not this press on the telephones by private subscribers that many people imagine.
The hon. Member for Droylsden (Mr. W. R. Williams) raised the question of charging Government Departments. I think that I have dealt with that point already. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe) discussed the Terrington Report. As the House knows, I do not propose to make any statement about that for the time being.
My hon. and learned Friend also said that we should change the basis of the unshared service and give it to other people as well. The more exclusive lines we give, the fewer people can be put on the telephone. I think that the formula started by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caerphilly is a fair formula which has stood the test of time. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hove also mentioned radio reception on the South Coast. I agree with him. There has been a good bit of deliberate


interference from overseas in the past year or so. It has been especially bad in the winter, and there is not an awful lot that we can do about it.
The hon. Member for Brightside (Mr. R. E. Winterbottom) discussed two technical matters and asked me if I would send him a reply. I shall be delighted to do so. He also asked whether the Organisation and Methods Branch was still functioning. The answer is "Yes." The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) raised a personal case. If he will send the details to me, I shall do my best to have it investigated.
Lastly, the hon. Member for Keighley asked what percentage of the money that we are asking the House to vote today will in fact be spent during the next year. I wish that I could tell him. I cannot tell him. There are so many uncertain factors of which the chief is the uncertainty about steel. He also asked about a specific account for telegraphs, and, of course, we have got that and do not propose to do away with this. The hon. Gentleman also asked a question about the Contracts Department and about the Plymouth General Post Office. These are matters which I cannot answer now, but which I will look into.
I think all hon. Members who have addressed the House have agreed on one thing—that it is deplorable that these cuts in capital expenditure in the Post Office have to be made. I can assure the House that nobody deplores that more than I do, and that nothing would give me greater pleasure than if I were able to say that we have enough money to begin all the necessary extensions to provide a better service, but here in the Post Office, as well as in many other Ministeries, we are faced with the dilemma that defence expenditure has to come before telephone extensions.
I hope that the time will not be far distant when it will be possible for whoever represents the Post Office to stand at this Box and announce, in presenting this Bill, that they have the green light to go ahead. I hope I have satisfied most hon. Members who have spoken, and I now ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Committed to a Committee of the whole House—[Mr. Oakshott.]—for Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — POST OFFICE AND TELEGRAPH [MONEY]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees). [Queen's Recommendation signified.]

[Colonel Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for raising further money for the development of the postal, telegraphic and telephonic systems and of any other business of the Post Office, and for the repayment to the Post Office Fund of money applied thereout for such development, it is expedient—

(i) to authorise the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of such turns, not exceeding in the whole seventy-five million pounds, as may be required for the purposes of such development or of such repayment as aforesaid;
(ii) to authorise the Treasury to borrow by means of terminable annuities for the purpose of providing money for sums so authorised to be issued, or for repaying to the Consolidated Fund all or any part of the sums so issued, and to authorise payment into the Exchequer of any sums so borrowed;
(iii) to provide for the payment of such terminable annuities out of moneys provided by Parliament for the service of the Post Office, or, if those moneys are insufficient, out of the Consolidated Fund.—[Mr. Gammans.]

7.32 p.m.

Mr. Hobson: I want to ask a question on this Money Resolution. It concerns the £75 million which is to be taken from the Consolidated Fund, and is being paid by the National Debt Commissioners. Are the interest repayments included in that £75 million, and can the Assistant Postmaster-General say what is the rate of interest?

Mr. Gammans: The interest is not included in that sum, but the rate of interest is fixed as between the National Debt Commissioners and the Treasury. It varies from time to time on the value of annuities over a number of years. If the hon. Gentleman requires some further details concerning these negotiations, into which, strictly, the Post Office does not come, it would be as well if he were to put down a Question to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on an appropriate occasion.

Mr. Hobson: It may be true that the Post Office does not come into these negotiations, but is not the hon. Gentleman


in duty bound to give the information? What we are particularly concerned about is whether the increase in the Bank rate will affect interest repayments. That is the point on which we require information.

Mr. Gammans: I can only give the hon. Gentleman figures for the fourth quarter of last year. The rate of interest is derived from the current yield of 20-year Government stocks. The interest rate for the first quarter was 3⅜per cent., for the second and third quarters 3⅛per cent., and for the fourth quarter 4 per cent.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: Surely it is extraordinary that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is not here when we are discussing this Financial Resolution? I have never before known a Minister in charge to suggest that an hon. Member ought to put down a Question to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I should have thought that it was the duty of the Government Front Bench, in Committee on a Financial Resolution, to have seen that a representative of the Treasury was here, so that the Committee should be given the information which it ought to have before being invited to pass the Resolution.

Mr. Gammans: I gave the House the information. All I suggested to the hon. Gentleman was that, if he wanted information as to the normal methods of negotiations between the Treasury and the National Debt Commissioners, into which the Post Office, as such, does not enter, the proper Minister to whom he should direct his question was not myself.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — NEW TOWNS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

7.36 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Ernest Marples): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This is a two-Clause Bill, the purpose of which is to ask Parliament for a further £50 million on account of expenditure under the New Towns Act, 1946. It flows naturally from the original Act, which, with its 26 Sections, set out machinery for establishing and administering the new towns. It placed at their disposal a first instalment of £50 million.
In 1946, the then Minister calculated that this first instalment of £50 million would last approximately five years; that is, from 1946 to 1951. In actual fact, it has lasted almost six years—until 1952. The main reason why the money has lasted an extra year was that constructional work did not proceed as speedily as was originally planned. It was thought that Parliament would be asked for a second instalment in 1951, whereas, in fact, we are asking for it one year later in 1952.
At this point, hon. Members will probably wonder what will be the final cost of the new towns when all are completed. Estimating the final cost is perilously like conjecture, as former holders of this office will know, but, for what it is worth, I am told that the final cost to the Exchequer, under the New Towns Act, 1946, and all the new towns Bills which may flow from it, will probably be between £225 million and £250 million, and that the expenditure of this money will be spread over 20 years. But I would not like, in future, to be bound by that estimate; it is merely given to assist hon. Members. No estimate can be really accurate, because there are quite a number of incalculable factors—

Mr. George Chetwynd: Is that estimate made assuming that there will be no more new towns, and on the basis of the existing ones?

Mr. Marples: Yes, on the basis of the 14 areas already designated, but even this


is problematic, because local authorities may decide to take a larger share under the New Towns Act, 1946, and under the Bill now presented, which means that the Exchequer share would be correspondingly reduced.
The 1946 Act provides for repayment over 60 years of all sums advanced, and for the payment of interest at the same rate as that payable by local authorities for housing. Under the original Act, Parliament provided a first instalment of £50 million, and, at the present rate of expenditure, this will be exhausted by July, 1952, so that we now ask for a second instalment of £50 million, which we hope will be spent in two years.
Hon. Members will probably ask what is the reason for the acceleration in expenditure. It is that in all constructional work progress in the early stages is slow. Sites have to be obtained, plans have to be prepared and in many cases hutments have to be erected to accommodate labour, and so on. There is a great deal of unproductive work with very little apparently to show for it in the early stages of large constructional schemes. In the 14 areas now designated that period is largely over and in the next two years the rate of development will increase and we hope to build sufficiently fast to have committed the £50 million for which we are asking by July, 1954. The Government will then have to seek Parliament's consent for a further instalment of money.
At this point it might be for the convenience of the House if I gave a brief account of the progress made to date on the new towns as a whole. It would be inappropriate for me to discuss new towns individually because they publish an annual report which gives a full and detailed account of their activities and progress. Fourteen areas have been designated as new towns and 13 new town corporations have been set up to administer them. One corporation is running two towns, at Welwyn and Hatfield. Eleven are in England, one is in Wales and two are in Scotland. Altogether, they have been designed to cope with about 480,000 new population, which gives an average—though averages are misleading—of about 34,000 population for each town.
Eight of the 11 English new towns are near London and are to help provide for

excess population in the London area. Ninety per cent. of the first £50 million spent or committed to be spent was for housing and main services such as sewerage and water supplies. Hon. Members probably will be most interested in the number of houses actually produced. In England and Wales at the end of February, 1952, 3,666 houses had been completed, 5,802 were under construction and contracts had been let but not started on a further 3,769. But now that the preliminary contracts are well advanced house building is proceeding more rapidly. In just over five years, up to February, 1952, 3,666 were completed. In England and Wales we hope to complete 3,810 houses in the next six months alone, which is more than were produced in the first five and a quarter years. That will give the House some idea of the quickening pace of house building. In a year or two we hope to reach a rate of well over 10,000 houses a year in the new towns in England and Wales.
I turn now to progress made in industrial development. Any hon. Member who has taken part in these discussions on new towns, on town and country planning and on the Town Development Bill will know it is essential that new towns, as well as existing towns, should be balanced communities with, broadly speaking, sufficient industry to provide employment for a large part of their population. At all costs we must avoid having masses of people travelling many miles each day to work. It is costly—and now more costly than it used to be—frustrating and tiring to spend hours travelling each day.
The remaining 10 per cent. of the first instalment of £50 million has been committed mainly to industrial purposes—shops, commercial buildings and the site works necessary to open up new industrial areas. A modest start is also being made this year on some of the town centres. General development expenses are included in this 10 per cent. These general development expenses are initial expenses on setting up a corporation, preparing for development and administering the project until sufficient building has taken place to produce adequate revenue.
These are the bare outlines of the picture of the new towns as a whole and I would commend to hon. Members the


excellent annual reports which are published by the new towns and which can be obtained at the Vote Office.

Mr. J. A. Sparks: Can the hon. Gentleman say if the up-to-date annual return is now available? I believe it is about due now.

Mr. Marples: I should not like to say that it is out for all the new towns, but the reports to which I am referring are the detailed reports by each new town in which is given a complete report of their activities during the preceding year. They give a wealth of information which I am sure the hon. Member will enjoy if he wades through all the reports in the Vote Office.
There is no controversy about the general aim and principle of the new towns. In 1946 the New Towns Bill received a Second Reading without a division. Of course, we may disagree on a number of points. Some hon. Members say too many schemes have been started and others say too few. We may disagree on the details of the administrative set-up. We may argue about the siting of some of the new towns—for a wide variety of reasons not all hon. Members are in agreement with the sites originally chosen. We may think that the logical step was that expanded towns should come first and new towns later. But although we may disagree with the method of carrying out the principle of new towns we are all agreed on general policy and to that policy we are all committed.
Once these huge schemes have started and are under way it behoves all of us to bring them to a satisfactory conclusion. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government has frequently expressed his keen interest in the new towns and he will do all in his power to see that they are a success. He has seen quite a number of them since he took office and he hopes to see them all in the next few months.
I shall assist him, as much as I can, to attain administrative and technical efficiency. I say that for the reason that hon. Members opposite have frequently thought that we on this side of the House were against the principle of new towns. That is not so. What we were concerned

with was that they should have the maximum administrative and technical efficiency, and some of us thought in the past that they had not reached that efficiency.

Mr. Ede: What do hon. and right hon. Members opposite think now?

Mr. Marples: I am asked what we think now. I think they have improved steadily since my right hon. Friend took over, and in the next three years they will improve further—with the assistance, I hope, of the right hon. Gentleman. My right hon. Friend is particularly anxious to accelerate the pace of building the houses, for certain reasons which are well known to hon. Members. We are trying to do that with the £50 million we are now asking to give us. My right hon. Friend commends the Bill to the House, and I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.

Mr. Michael Foot: Can the hon. Gentleman say how building in the new towns will be affected by the general capital investment cuts and whether the announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in January is having any effect on building new towns or not?

Mr. Marples: The pace of building in new towns will accelerate for the next two years for the simple reason that the contracts are already let and the materials are flowing in. We hope to spend £50 million in the next two years against £50 million spread over five years in the past, and if we can go faster than that we shall do so. We shall be affected to some extent by the shortage of steel, but not by shortage of capital. Steel for flats might cause a hold-up in some of the new towns where they are erecting high blocks in the centres of the towns—that is supposed to be the latest feature in town planning. But the capital investment cuts will not affect house building, or roads and sewerage schemes which are largely provided.

7.50 p.m.

Mr. G. Lindgren: We on this side of the House give this Bill a very hearty welcome and we are glad that, through the Parliamentary Secretary, the Government have emphasised that it is their intention to carry on with


the general policy of the new towns as envisaged in the New Towns Act.
There is one point about the new towns which the Parliamentary Secretary did not mention and about which perhaps we may be given some information before the debate concludes. It is that Congleton was designated before we left office, and we should be glad of an assurance that that new town is to go forward, thereby relieving the congestion in Manchester, North Staffordshire and the Pottery areas.
Because of the business before the House this evening, I intend to be brief, but that brevity does not in any way indicate any lack of enthusiasm for new towns, which, I think most hon. Members will appreciate, have been among my hobbies for many years. The Parliamentary Secretary rightly said that these new towns must be balanced communities, and my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) interjected a remark towards the end of the Parliamentary Secretary's speech about facilities for industry and other commitments likely to be cut under the capital investment programme.
There is some fear—whether it is well founded or not I am not sure—that there is likely to be a slackening of industrial, social and educational development in the new towns. I hope that we shall be given an assurance that development of these activities will continue without having to suffer cuts in any shape or form; if not, progress in the new towns will be very much restricted.
Most of the people going into the new towns are coming from places such as London and large towns in other parts of the country. They are, in fact, townsmen; they are not countrymen. They must have the facilities of an urban area. If people are to be moved into an area where there are no social amenities when they have been used to such amenities, and where the educational facilities are likely to be fewer than those in the existing areas, progress in the new towns is likely to be restricted.
I should be glad if the Minister will give an assurance on those two points when he replies, and I conclude by again welcoming the Bill, and reiterating that the brevity of my speech is solely to facilitate the business of the House.

7.53 p.m.

Mr. W. M. F. Vane: The Parliamentary Secretary introduced this as a Bill of two Clauses. I should like to suggest how it could be improved by adding one more Clause in the Committee stage. We are perpetuating the appearance of Parliamentary control over the policy of new towns, but, in fact, we have not yet got the substance. There is a misleading element still in the policy. This is a chance to put it right.
Section I of the 1946 Act gives the Minister power to designate new towns in unlimited numbers, provided that he is satisfied that it is expedient in the national interest, and that he has had consultation with the interested local authorities. Hon. Members will notice that local inquiry, but no Parliamentary inquiry, is necessary. As the Parliamentary Secretary said, 14 new towns have already been designated, and they are to cost about £250 million or perhaps more. Therefore, we are already committed to spend a far larger sum than the £50 million which we are discussing tonight. It makes this debate academic.
I am not sure that it is right, however great a respect we have for the Minister, that we should give him power to designate towns without coming to Parliament for the final sanction and, in fact, committing this country to the expenditure of very large sums of money on his authority alone. It is quite impossible to see how the House could possibly refuse to grant the money to complete a new town once started. I am not hostile to the idea of new towns. I have always supported the idea; in fact, during the last year I have taken the trouble to visit three of them. But I do think that we ought to take this opportunity of putting right what I am sure hon. Members will agree is a very weak point in the original Act.
Later this week we are to be asked by another Minister, by affirmative Resolution, to approve a fertiliser scheme. Yet this Minister can designate as many new towns as he likes, each costing something in the nature of the groundnut venture—and surely we spent enough time talking about that last year. I should have thought that if it was really necessary for my right hon. Friend to come to this House with an affirmative Resolution before a fertiliser scheme can be put into operation, it ought also to be right for


any Minister responsible for the time being for new towns, to come to the House with a similar Resolution before designation. I am sure that it would be better if he could do that, and I hope he will be able to say, during the Committee stage, that something on those lines can be done.

7.55 p.m.

Mr. J. A. Sparks: I am very glad to be able to support the Second Reading of this Bill. I am sorry that more time is not to be made available for its discussion because, though very small in number of Clauses, it is nevertheless very important, particularly to people in London and the Greater London area, as well as in the great towns and cities of our country.
Before I proceed I want to make a complaint about a matter which closely affects my own constituency. The Minister has seen fit to make a number of changes in the personnel of development corporations, and he has given no adequate reason for displacing in some cases very competent persons and putting in their places others about whose competence many of us know nothing at all.
I want, therefore, to remind him in particular about a Question which I put to him on 4th March about his displacement of the chairman of our local planning committee at Acton, who was also a member of Hemel Hempstead Development Corporation, by declining to renew his term of office on the Development Corporation. The right hon. Gentleman's answer was totally unsatisfactory. When I asked him that Question, he said that the rest of London was also interested in this new town, and he gave that as a reason why he displaced the chairman of the local planning committee of the Acton Borough Council.
I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman has got the right conception of these new town development corporations. He will find that each of these new towns is linked up to a definite congested area, and the Hemel Hempstead Development Corporation in particular is linked up with Acton, Willesden, Wembley, Hendon and Harrow. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that, in the first place, before the Hemel Hempstead Development Corporation was designated at all, the Acton Borough

Council was interested in the development of a housing scheme at Hemel Hempstead because we are a built-up area in Acton; we have no land on which to build more houses; we have 15,000 too many people living in the area, and we have a housing list of well over 4,000 people in a population of just under 70,000.
We went there and we were in the process of negotiating with the Hemel Hempstead Urban District Council for the acquisition of a site on which to build 400 houses, when along came the Minister and designated Hemel Hempstead as a new town, thus preventing the Acton Borough Council from continuing its original intention of providing 400 houses at Hemel Hempstead.
However, the Minister realised the importance of Acton's interest in the development of Hemel Hempstead, and the chairman of our local planning committee was constituted a member of the Development Corporation. Consequently, we have been very closely linked with Hemel Hempstead. Many hundreds of our people are looking forward to new homes at Hemel Hempstead, and this action of the Minister in cutting off our Acton member from this Development Corporation has led to a lack of confidence in the prospects of many of our people being rehoused there.
I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman, when he replies, to give some reason why he has displaced really good, first-class men from these development corporations. Is it because they do not carry the political label of his side? He has got rid of quite a number of really good fellows who happen to be of our political frame of mind rather than his. I should like some answer from him on that.
I turn now to one or two other matters arising from the Bill and the purposes for which it is presented. First of all, it is important to realise that what the Parliamentary Secretary has said about the increasing momentum of development now taking place is very important, and it has a direct relationship to the amount of money proposed in this Bill, which I think is quite inadequate. In the first three years of the Act just over £6 million was expended by the development corporations; up to 1950, that is, roughly four years after the Act, £11,362,000 was


expended, and up to 29th February, 1952, roughly six years after the main Act, no less than £22 million has been spent by the development corporations in development schemes.
As the Parliamentary Secretary said just now, the expenditure already approved for developments up to the end of July this year is no less than £50 million, and if that rate of momentum is to be maintained in the next two years the right hon. Gentleman will find that this additional £50 million is quite inadequate to finance the programmes of the development corporations. Bearing in mind the fact that this £50 million has a much lower value, measured in terms of development, than the original £50 million has, because of the rise in prices, particularly building costs, I doubt whether this £50 million is worth more than about £35 million or £40 million comparing its value with that of three or four years ago.
If the development corporations are to do their job in the way in which the Parliamentary Secretary has indicated and this gathering momentum in development is to continue, I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that he will require much more than £50 million in the next two years unless there is some intention to reduce the pace of development.
The hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) raised the question of the capital investment programme and whether it is proposed to permit the development corporations to develop as speedily as they can or to make some reduction in the rate of development. That is very important. I think it would be entirely wrong for any steps to be taken by the Government to restrict the development programmes of these development corporations, because they are carrying out very important and very urgent tasks.
The Parliamentary Secretary said that of the expenditure already incurred by the development corporations 90 per cent. was expended upon housing and the main services and roughly 10 per cent. for industrial and other purposes. In the matter of the 90 per cent., the Parliamentary Secretary failed completely to give any clear indication to the House as to the effect upon the housing programme of the development corporations as a result of the rise in the interest rates upon advances from the

Public Works Loans Board. We know the rate of interest has gone up from 3 per cent. to 4½ per cent. What has that meant to the development corporations and particularly to those people who are going to live in the houses which these development corporations are building?
That is a very vital point. If the House will bear with me, I will illustrate that by some figures which prove conclusively that the burden, in the shape of rent now being charged to people going to the new towns, is growing to such a point that development corporations may not succeed in their purpose in attracting people to live there. The development corporations have completed and under construction 8,486 houses to house just under 30,000 people.
If we take a house, the capital cost of which today is £2,050, which is a very fair average, it will be found that the annual charges to be met on that house are £94 14s. 6d. for loan charge, £5 for supervision and management, and £25 for maintenance and repairs; so that the annual charge is £124 14s. 6d. Side by side with that figure, by way of deduction, there is the Exchequer contribution, which amounts to £26 14s.
It must be remembered that the development corporations have no means of contributing a rate subsidy as the local authorities have, so there is no local rate subsidy or rate contribution. The only deduction one can make is the Exchequer Grant, which leaves a figure of £98 0s. 6d. a year as the net rent which any person would have to pay in taking up a house in the development corporation area. At the old loan rate of 3 per cent. and the old rate of subsidy that net rent would be £87 7s. 9d. In other words, as a result of the increased rate of interest charged by the Public Works Loans Board, the rent of such a house would have increased by £10 12s. 9d. a year, or about 4s. 1d. a week.
But that is not the whole story. The position is far more serious than that, because a house of the type I am talking about, three years ago would have cost £1,650. It has risen in cost by £400 in the last three years. Three years ago that type of house could have been let at a net rent of £57 19s. 6d. a year. Today it would be £40 1s. 0d. a year more. Put in a simpler way, the net rent of such a


house three years ago would have been 22s. 3d. a week; today, on the basis of the old interest rate and the old subsidy it would have been 33s. 7d. a week; but with the increased interest charges and the higher rate subsidies it would cost 37s. 8d. a week.
So, in three years, the rent of that type of house has increased by 15s. 5d. a week. Added to these figures are the rates. It will be found that the rental being charged for the houses of many of these development corporations are becoming excessive and it is time the Minister did something about it; otherwise we might have lots of houses going up which people will be unable to go into because they cannot afford to pay the rent.
Another important aspect of the Bill is in industrial development. We all know that unless there is an adequate development of industry in the new towns, we cannot hope to hold the population who are going there to live. The right hon. Gentleman, in answer to a Question which I put to him on 18th March, gave details, in addition to the number of houses built and under construction, of the industrial establishments in the new towns. I was surprised at the very small number of industries that have been completed and are under construction in the new towns. The Parliamentary Secretary referred to 13 new town development corporations.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): I do not think the hon. Gentleman is in order in dealing with industrial development. The scope of this Bill is very narrow. It merely adds a further £50 million to the development corporations.

Mr. Sparks: This money is to be used not only for the development of housing schemes but for the development of buildings and factories. These new town development corporations spend this money to build factories which are let to industrialists at a rent, so, with very great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I think that you will find this is strictly in order, because at least 10 per cent. of this money will be spent on the building of factories and on industrial development.
The point that I want to emphasise is this: I do not think that the industrial development in the new towns is sufficiently rapid because, of the 12 new town development corporations, particulars of which the Minister supplied to me—the Parliamentary Secretary talked about 13, but I do not know where the other one is—in five of the 12, Aycliffe, Corby, Cwmbran, Peterlee and Stevenage, there is no industrial development completed or under construction.
If we compare the number of persons who have gone there to live and are expected to go there to live, particularly if no new industry is being developed in the area, we see that the time has come when something must be done to speed up industrial development at least in those five areas where at the moment there is no industrial development whatsoever. In a further two, which makes seven out of the 12, there is only one industry established, and, in one of those two, that one industry is only just under construction. If we take the other five we find that the pace of industrial development is very slow indeed.
I will not weary the House by giving figures, which I could do, to prove that what I am saying is correct, but I would like to draw the attention of the House and of the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends to the last report of the new town development corporations, dated 31st March, 1951. I was hoping that an up-to-date report would be available for this debate, but apparently it is not. The Minister will find if he looks through the report of the new town development corporations that there is a consistent complaint about inability to bring to the areas new industries which are willing to come but are unable to get the necessary industrial certificate and the building licences from the Board of Trade.
I think that it is time that the Minister of Housing and Local Government looked into this matter, because the rate of industrial development in the new towns is lagging seriously behind, and unless some steps are taken by him to persuade the Board of Trade, who are the responsible body for issuing industrial certificates, and the Ministry of Works, for building licences, to take a different attitude to industrial development in the new towns he will find, as time goes on,


that this will create very great difficulties in holding populations in areas where there is no work for them.
I can speak for my own constituency which is very heavily industrialised with over 500 factories great and small. Only one small factory has gone out of the area to a new town. Cannot something be done to persuade these industries and factories in congested areas to go into the new towns? There is evidence in the reports of the new town development corporations that they could get more industrial development in the new towns if only the Government Departments concerned with the issue of industrial certificates and building licences would be a little more realistic in their concessions to those industrialists who want to go to the new towns and provide work for the populations there.
My final point is in regard to the transfer of workers to new towns. I will give an illustration of what I am trying to emphasise. In my own constituency, there is a very important factory which wanted to expand. It could not expand within the borough, and it had to go to Hemel Hempstead, where it has built a new factory.
There are a number of workers in my constituency working in the main factory, who have been on the housing list for many years and who are badly housed, but, for some reason, the Hemel Hempstead Corporation debar them from going to the new town, and are only prepared to take into the new town people on conditions—in the case of a man, that he goes into this factory at Acton and trains there for three months, then goes to Hemel Hempstead and gets a new house.
Consequently, in this particular factory at the present time there is a great industrial unrest, because the men there are expected to train these outsiders in specialised jobs, so that they may go to new towns and have a new house, while they themselves are debarred from transferring to the firm's new factory at Hemel Hempstead.
I had a number of letters from fellows in this factory. Some of them have been on the Acton Council housing list for some years—in one case eight or nine years—and I think that there must be a fair method devised of transferring

workers from the congested areas of our towns and cities to these new towns.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I have no doubt that the matters to which the hon. Member is referring are important matters, but I fail to see how they arise on this Bill at all. This Bill provides for capital expenditure for housing.

Mr. Desmond Donnelly: If you will look, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, at the constitution of the new towns set out in the 1946 New Towns Act, you will find that the new towns are empowered to build factories, and this money is to enable them to build factories and houses.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not the point which the hon. Member is dealing with. He is dealing with the transfer of workers.

Mr. Sparks: With all due respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, the new town development corporations are definitely responsible for using this money which we are raising tonight for building factories, and they are the people who decide who are to go into the houses which they are building to service the new industries which they, too, are developing. This, I realise, is more an administrative point than anything else, but I want to mention it tonight because it is a burning question in areas like my constituency, and we must insist that those who are transferred from the congested areas to the new towns are people with the greatest need for housing accommodation and must be the people who have the skill to do the jobs in the new towns where the new industries are being developed.
I must apologise for taking so long, but this is a very important Bill, and it is all very well to try to rush it through in the matter of an hour or so. This is a vitally important Bill and one which affects all the great towns and cities of our country. I think, therefore, it is important that we should emphasise, as well as we can on this occasion, because we do not have an opportunity very often, these problems which come before us from time to time.
I hope that the Bill will receive a unanimous Second Reading, as I feel sure that it will, and I trust that during the Committee stage the Minister will see his way clear to improve it still further.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. Bernard Braine: I am afraid that I cannot share the unqualified approval which the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) gives to this Bill. When one considers the magnitude of the task undertaken in the New Towns Act, 1946, and the vastness of the sums of money which are being spent, it is a very remarkable fact that, apart from the Adjournment debate which I initiated in May, 1950, the subject of new towns and the way in which the New Towns Act, 1946, has been operated has never come under discussion in this House.
We have had very little information about the new towns except in so far as we have had from time to time nicely presented annual reports from the development corporations. If the new towns have been doing well, we have not heard much about it; if they have been doing badly, any attempt at criticism at Question time, certainly in the last Parliament, was quickly thrust aside.
Only a few hon. Members have new towns in their constituencies, and only two hon. Members, the hon. Lady the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Viscountess Davidson) and I, have new towns where there is already a very large resident population, with all the peculiar problems which arise from that fact.

Mr. Lindgren: Surely the hon. Member does not suggest that Corby is not a town of considerable size?

Mr. Braine: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that I am thinking in terms of an existing population of 20,000 to 25,000 people, which is a very substantial number. If it is decided to plant a new town on top of them, it is not surprising that a number of difficulties—to put it mildly—arise.
The Minister comes to the House today and seeks to increase the amount of money to be spent on new towns. I think I shall be in order in saying that before we agree to give the Bill a Second Reading we should satisfy ourselves that the money already spent has been wisely spent, that the policy is sound and that any doubts and fears which may have arisen in the past are likely to be removed in the future.
It is fantastic, but true, that under the 1946 Act, which advanced a sum of no more than £50 million, the Minister could

designate as many new towns as he liked without coming to the House to ask for leave. Bismarck would have been delighted to have had powers of that kind. The result was that my right hon. Friend's predecessors were able to commit the nation to a capital expenditure, in respect of the 14 new towns which they designated, of not far short of £300 million, although the sum which Parliament voted them in the first place was not more than £50 million.
There are very grave doubts indeed whether the powers granted under the previous Act have been wisely used, and it is high time that the House had an opportunity of knowing exactly what has been done in the darkness of the last few years. There was the new town of Peterlee, sited on top of 30 million tons of good coal. After designation it was discovered that the coal lay beneath.
I would refer the House to the 1949 Report of the Peterlee Corporation:
There are about thirty million tons of coal under the designated area; and it was early appreciated that a realistic master plan depended on an agreed solution of the problem of co-ordinating surface development and underground mining.
It would have been better if this area had never been designated at all. The Report goes on to say:
… on the Minister's instruction, an outline for a master plan was prepared on the purely theoretical assumption that the problem of coal did not exist.
What was the result of that? I turn to the Annual Report for 1951, where we see:
As the whole of the designated area lies over several seams of coal which are in the process of being worked, progress at Peterlee is to a great extent hinged on the co-ordination of surface planning with underground working.
The result was that during 1950–51 there was a ding-dong battle between the Development Corporation and the Coal Board. Apparently houses can only be built if coal is sterilised or the density of housing is lessened, so that houses have to be built on concrete rafts to avoid the risk of subsidence, all of which causes increased costs.
The Corporation go on to say:
The Coal Board's concessions to the new town involved the unavoidable sterilisation of just over one million tons of coal. The loss of coal involved is very much regretted by the Corporation.


I should say it is. It is a crying scandal that this area should have been designated as a new town in these circumstances, and I think hon. Members opposite would agree with this.
Then we have the new town of Bracknell—

Mr. Lindgren: Is it to go on record that the hon. Gentleman does not believe that the miner is just as much entitled to a decent home, in decent surroundings, as any other member of the community? Peterlee is providing decent homes where successive Tory mineowners caused men to live in hovels not fit for animals.

Mr. Braine: The hon. Gentleman would have been wiser not to make that intervention. He completely misunderstood my point, which was that this site was unsuitable for a new town. Neither in this House nor elsewhere have I ever opposed the principle of new towns. On the contrary, I think it is a noble idea. But the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues failed to pay sufficient attention to the early planning considerations.

Mr. James MacColl: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that one cannot build a new town in Durham without encountering problems of subsidence?

Mr. Braine: The responsibility for selecting a suitable area is not mine. This was a case where an area was selected where it was proposed to build houses on top of 30 million tons of good British coal. As a result the cost of that new town will be very much greater than originally planned. [Interruption.] There is no point in arguing about it; the mistake has been made. My point is that the House should have an opportunity of understanding what other mistakes were made before we go any further.
I turn to the question of Bracknell. Many hundreds of acres of some of the finest agricultural land in Berkshire were included in the designated area. As a result of the very proper protests that were made a public inquiry was held and the land in question was excluded, with the result, as everybody, including the Corporation themselves now admit, that the remaining area is too small on which to build a satisfactory and balanced new town.
I come now to the new town of Basildon, in my own constituency. Here a site was chosen astride the main road and

rail links between London and Southend, which is the largest town in the eastern counties. Here the planners ran riot. They first of all decided upon an optimum population of 50,000. Later, they changed their minds about it. It was now to house a population of 80,000. In their last Annual Report the figure of 90,000 is mentioned. Originally the sewage was to be taken to the River Crouch, but as a result of this vastly increased population and of other difficulties it is now to be taken southwards to the River Thames, with the result that it is to cost an additional £250,000. [Laughter.] It is not a laughing matter. It makes me question whether the figures which my hon. Friend gave to the House as to what the new towns are ultimately to cost are at all accurate.
How are we to be sure, when so many mistakes have been made, that they are accurate? At every turn it has been found necessary to recast plans and ideas, and we are entitled to wonder what these things are going to cost. All these difficulties have arisen out of the failure of those who designated these new towns. Yet many of these difficulties were clearly foreseen by the Reith Committee.
It will be remembered that that Committee actually warned against the siting of new towns anywhere near small towns, and preferred the idea of developing relatively undeveloped sites. They said:
We think that the difficulties which will arise in carrying out the major extension of a small town, such as the interference with existing interests and relationships, have not been fully appreciated.
If that Committee had been able to look into the future, it would have seen the very difficulties which it warned against being ignored by the predecessors of my right hon. Friend.
The Reith Committee gave a clear-cut warning to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) to avoid, as far as possible, designating built-up areas. If he decided to take the risk there was a duty upon him to mitigate the hardship that was caused. Nevertheless, the fact is that Hemel Hempstead, with an existing population of 21,000, and Basildon, with an existing population of 25,000, were designated as new towns. It is quite impossible to build new towns in those areas without causing a great deal of disturbance and hardship to the people living there.
The Basildon Development Corporation's first Annual Report mentions that
the effect of various enactments governing the compensation to be paid by the Corporation for vacant possession inevitably restricts the sale within the designated area, and in certain cases causes genuine hardship thus hindering the Corporation's efforts to win the confidence and co-operation of the inhabitants.
Let me take this opportunity of putting something else on record. It was the doctrinaire attitude of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bishop Auckland and his Friends, when they sat on the Government benches, on the subject of Basildon, which caused a great deal of distress to my constituents.
In an Adjournment debate on 15th May, I asked if a freeholder whose land and property was left unaffected by the master plan would be left in possession of his freehold rights. I asked a clear cut question, and the hon. Member for Wellingborough, who was then the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, said in reply:
There will be no fears set at rest on the basis of allowing the existing freeholders to remain, because, in fact, that could not happen. It would be impossible to create the new town and allow the freeholders to remain.
A little later the hon. Gentleman said—and he repeated it several times to make it absolutely clear—
This area will become a leasehold area but a leasehold from the community, the community owning the land.
He ended this part of the speech with this declaration:
I said, and I repeat, that for the purpose of creating a new town it is necessary to have single ownership of the land of the area."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th May, 1950; Vol. 475, c. 965–968.]

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Braine: I am glad to hear hon. Gentlemen opposite cheer that statement because, subsequently, the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland went out of his way to try to explain away the statement of his Parliamentary Secretary.
That statement depressed the value of property throughout the designated area and caused a great deal of unhappiness to people, some of whom, normally, are keen supporters of the party opposite. Moreover, feeling ran particularly high in Basildon and Hemel Hempstead, because

powers of land acquisition were being exercised by a public corporation which was not representative of the people on the spot. It is one thing for the local authority to exercise compulsory powers of purchase; it is another thing for a nonelected body—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I have listened for some time to the hon. Gentleman. He is really discussing past administration. That is not in order on the Second Reading of a Bill.

Mr. Braine: With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I submit that before the House gives the Bill a Second Reading and gives approval to the expenditure of a further £50 million, it should have an opportunity of deciding whether the policy so far has been wisely carried out and whether there is not reason to believe that if the Bill is given this Second Reading these difficulties will arise again.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That was the purpose, originally, of the hon. Gentleman's argument. He was saying that the original £50 million was not wisely spent and, therefore, that there should not be this further demand for another £50 million, but he cannot go into details of past administration.

Mr. Braine: Is it not permissible for me to inquire whether, in the expenditure of the future £50 million my right hon. Friend considers that a development corporation is the best agent? I take it that I should be in order if I raised that particular point. I do so for the reason—it is a most interesting one—that, in the Town Development Bill, which is now in Committee, the task of developing an expanded town has been entrusted not to a development corporation but to the local authority.
In this connection, I should like to know the distinction between a new town and an expanded town. In many cases the new towns, like those at Hemel Hempstead and Basildon, are also expanded towns. They are new towns grafted on to towns which already exist. Take some of the towns which have already been scheduled as expanded towns, such as Witham in Essex; what is the distinction between them and the new towns? If it is possible to carry out the development of a town like Witham or Wickford in any constituency by using the existing


local authority, why is it necessary to employ a development corporation in building new towns such as those I have mentioned?

Mr. Lindgren: Surely the hon. Gentleman has sufficient local knowledge to know that, as far as Basildon was concerned, it was designated as a development corporation at the request of the Essex County Council and Billericay Rural and Urban District Council because there was such a terrible mass of shacks, and so on, in the area that it was beyond the local resources to put matters right.

Mr. Braine: I agree with the latter part of the remark, namely, that it was beyond local resources to put matters right. I also agree that the decision to designate the area as a new town flowed from the request of the then Labour controlled Essex County Council and the then Labour controlled Billericay Urban District Council. At that time the full implications of the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, particularly its financial provisions, were not properly understood. It would have been a different story, if they had been. However, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I know you will call me to order if I follow the red herring drawn by the hon. Gentleman.
How soon are areas like Basildon and Hemel Hempstead, with large resident populations, to get properly constituted local government? Already there are many difficulties arising out of the operation of two authorities in the same area; one a properly elected body in the case of Basildon, the Billericay Urban District Council, and the other a non-elected body nominated by the Minister, the Basildon Development Corporation.
Here there are two authorities with overlapping powers. In the field of physical development they have identical powers. In the field of public health and sanitation and certain other matters the powers are with the local authority but the burden could be—I do not say that it is—increased by the operations of the Corporation. In the field of finance the Corporation secures its income from ground rents, but it cannot levy taxes by way of rates, while the local authority can levy rates but cannot draw on ground rents.
The hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) raised a most important point

when he spoke a little earlier about rents. Let me give the House an idea of the anomalies which exist in this respect. At Cwmbran inclusive rents have been fixed provisionally at 36s. 6d. by the corporation. Yet nearby an identical house of exactly the same dimensions erected by the rural district council is rented at 21s. 8d. and there are people on the waiting list of the rural district council who have a right, as the result of an agreement between the two authorities, to go into the houses of the corporation. But many say they cannot avail themselves of this opportunity because the rents are too high.
Let us look at the difference between the rents of local authority houses and those of the corporations. At Stevenage the rents of a three bedroom terraced house small type are 34s. 3d., large type 39s. 5d., and 40s. 11d. for the end house in a terrace. I agree with the hon. Member for Acton that these rents are far beyond the capacity of the poorer families to pay. If we are to attract lower paid workers into the new towns—and we must do that to have properly balanced communities—something must be done about the rents.
As the House knows, the reason is that the Corporation cannot keep the rents down by contributions from the rate fund or by raising the rents of a pool of houses built in an earlier period when costs were lower. I am not saying that the rents in the new towns are excessive, but there is the difficulty that in the future we may have a problem arising in respect of lower-paid workers. For instance, I am told that at Stevenage they cannot get dustmen because suitable people cannot pay the rents of the houses erected at the present time.
I say, therefore, that there is a considerable volume of argument in favour of one body in the new towns having the total of powers and finances now shared by two, certainly in areas where large populations already exist. The present system is wasteful in the extreme. In one new town of which I know, 28 consultations and approvals must precede the execution of plans and 11 separate authorities' plans and projects have to be co-ordinated with those of the corporation. This means waste of money and staff.
There is one last point to which I should like to draw my right hon.


Friend's attention. There is no more burning question in new towns than that of freehold compensation. Under the 1946 Act, when land was required for purposes of development a man's freehold property could be taken and he could only be given a leasehold in exchange, except by consent of the Minister, given only in exceptional cases.
My right hon. Friend's predecessors always declined to use their powers under Section 5 (1) of the New Towns Act, with the result that people who wanted to build on their own freehold land or on another freehold site—and there have been scores of cases in new towns—have been prevented from doing so. I draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to one curious anomaly. In the Towns Development Bill, it is intended to give power to local authorities to dispose of the freehold of land. Supposing the Town Development Bill becomes law—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member is getting back to administration again. We have passed from that.

Mr. Braine: May I put this point very shortly to my right hon. Friend, because it is a matter—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member can put it shortly if it is in order, but not if it is out of order, however short.

Mr. Braine: I know that there is a great deal of business to be transacted and I do not intend to detain the House more than a moment or two, but purely as an illustration perhaps I may point out that if the Town Development Bill becomes law, there would be the extraordinary situation that in Basildon—a new town—it would not be possible for a freeholder whose land is being acquired to be given a freehold plot in exchange, but that at Wickford, just over the border, which is scheduled as an expanded town, it would be possible.
I ask my right hon. Friend, therefore, to look into this matter and to see whether it is not possible to amend the Bill at a later stage, or, perhaps, without amending the Bill, to use the powers which he already has under the 1946 Act, to make freehold compensation possible. If he gives an assurance on these lines, it would go a long way towards reconciling freeholders in Hemel Hempstead

and Basildon towards the idea of new towns.
The right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland and the hon. Member for Wellingborough always thought that this was a small matter, but it is not. Indeed, if this great social experiment of new towns is to succeed, as it must, it has to be founded upon a basis of justice and it must carry the existing inhabitants of these places with it. I am sure that that is what my right hon. Friend wishes to do.

8.48 p.m.

Mr. Desmond Donnelly: I will not keep the House very long, but I am very glad to have an opportunity of following the interesting speech of the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine). I agree with his peroration, but I cannot say that I agree with very much else.
The hon. Member began with a rather strange constitutional proposal which had earlier been made by the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Vane). In effect, it was a vote of censure on his right hon. Friend the Minister. The hon. Member, evidently, did not have any confidence in his own Minister of Housing and Local Government undertaking new town developments in desirable places.
There is one Motion already on the Order Paper demanding the dismissal of the right hon. Gentleman. I hope that there will not be any further support for such a proposal from hon. Members on the Minister's own benches, because I have a very great personal affection for the right hon. Gentleman. He will need it in the coming months.
The hon. Member for Billericay spoke in the main about three new towns—Peterlee, a few perfunctory words about Bracknell and a few more words about Basildon. I do not know whether he knows County Durham at all. It is an area of straggling mining villages, with no social amenities of any kind, where people have been living by pitheads for generations—a downright disgrace to the Industrial Revolution and the coal masters who perpetrated them. The whole object of this new town of Peter-lee was to give to the miners of Durham, of Britain, the best living conditions that Britain could give, but the hon. Member


has come to criticise the proposal and gone on record as saying that the new town of Peterlee should never have been designated at all. Those were his words.

Mr. Braine: The hon. Member must not put words into my mouth which I did not utter. What I asked was, would it not have been possible to find some other site than one which planted a new town on 30 million tons of coal? I did not for a moment suggest—if I did suggest it to the hon. Member I now correct it—that miners of Durham should not have a new town. Let us build new towns all over the place without misusing the resources of coal and good agricultural land, which were misused by hon. Members opposite.

Mr. Donnelly: I think the hon. Member must be wanting to build towns in the air, perhaps in the hot air that he has been giving the House. The whole of East Durham is a coalfield. It extends over the whole area where a new town could be built if the miners are to be able to go to and from their work, and obviously the site of Peterlee is the best site which could be selected.
On the question of Basildon, I do not know whether the hon. Member has visited his own constituency. If he has, he is doubtless aware of the deplorable living conditions, referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) as "shacks," with unmade-up roads, a dreary and almost desolate area in the Pitsea-Laindon area. All my right hon. Friend the previous Minister was doing was to provide decent living and working conditions for the constituents of the hon. Member. I hope he will not go on record against that also, as that would be a great pity if he did visit his constituency, because he might have difficulty in facing his constituents—

Mr. Braine: I live there.

Mr. Donnelly: The hon. Member says that he lives there. I hope he will continue to live there in safety. The hon. Member talked of the inequities of the leasehold system in new towns. I well remember him initiating an Adjournment debate in 1950. I am very much against the leasehold system perpetrated by Tory landowners in South Wales, but the hon. Member will appreciate that the whole system of financing new towns cannot

be undertaken without the public ownership of the land in those areas. It is tied up with the whole administrative system of land ownership. He will also appreciate that if we are not to waste the £50 million we are voting, it is imperative that the land should be in public ownership so that the land values created by the activities of the corporation shall be recouped for the benefit of the community as a whole.

Mr. Braine: I wonder if the hon. Member will make one thing quite clear? Does he mean to say, as his hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) said in 1950, that even though a man's freehold property is not required for the purposes of development of a new town, nevertheless it should be acquired?

Mr. Donnelly: If the hon. Member will look into the matter carefully in the interest of saving public money, he will appreciate that if a new town is to be built the land values will be increased. Then, it is obvious that the development corporation should be in a position to recoup those values.

Mr. Braine: The hon. Member is only displaying an ignorance of my constituency, which is not unnatural. The whole point of my argument is that in new towns, such as Basildon, the value of property has decreased as a result of the policy of the former Government.

Mr. Donnelly: No, I think that all that happened there was a temporary depression as a result of the speeches of the hon. Member, and once his constituents experience the actual benefits which will accrue to them, there will be a considerable rise.
There is, I think, only one real reason why the hon. Member for Billericay is so opposed to this proposal and works up so much synthetic indignation whenever the subject is mentioned. It is because he is afraid of new towns and of people coming from the East End of London to live in his constituency who will remove him from this House. The hon. Member thinks that that is a kind of sword of Damocles hanging over him. One day it will fall and chop off his head.

Mr. Braine: Was that the motive for designating this new town?

Mr. Donnelly: I think the hon. Gentleman overrates his own importance.
But let me come to what I was proposing to say. There are two points which I wish to make. One is the question of rents, about which the hon. Member for Billericay spoke, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks). Let us not condemn what the hon. Member for Billericay said in this respect just because he said it. It is quite a valid point which he made.
The problem of rents in the new towns is very real. There is a story in today's "Daily Express" about a new block of flats at Stevenage where the rents are £4 5s. a week, and where the only tenant is an American officer, because he is the only chap who can afford the rents in this new block of flats. I know that this is not a criticism of the Minister, it is a criticism of previous Administrations as well, but I should like an assurance that this kind of monstrosity will not be perpetrated in the future and that careful consideration will be given to such proposals as that block of flats for Stevenage, and the whole question of the economics of such flats, before any public money is spent on building them in the future.
There is another point which concerns me. I have been visiting a number of these new towns recently and have seen, as has been mentioned by one or two hon. Members, the problem resulting from not being able to increase the rents by the new town corporations. They are tied by the Rent Restrictions Act, whereas local authorities are not. I am not suggesting that rents should be raised; I suggest they should be lowered. But the practice has grown in a number of new towns—I do not know whether the Minister is aware of it—of taking a symbolic rent for the first week, say for the sake of argument £4 a week, and then once the precedent is established a new town corporation is able to lower the rent to 30s. or 32s. a week—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am loath to interfere, but I fail to see what the question of rent has to do with the capital sum.

Mr. Donnelly: I would submit to you. Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that we shall lose all the capital sum and will not get any return on it if we are not able to run the new towns on an economic basis. I wish

to draw to the attention of the Minister this precedent which one or two new town corporations are setting. I know they are in a jam and it is difficult to do anything about it, but I think it undesirable that public bodies should be using this kind of device to get round the law in circumstances such as this.
I wish to mention one other point which has already been made adequately by my hon. Friend the Member for Acton, and that is the question of industry in the new towns. The Fourth Report of the Committee of Public Accounts published on 24th July, 1951, went into this matter and drew the attention of the House to some difficulties existing in the new towns on which satisfactory settlement is absolutely essential if the new towns are to be successful in the future. On page 30, the Report states:
… some firms who were willing to establish industries in New Towns could not get the necessary permission from the Board of Trade, or, if they got it, they might be told that they were not important enough at the moment to qualify for a building licence.
This is the policy of the Board of Trade, apparently, and not the policy of the Department of the right hon. Gentleman The Report continued:
Already commitments of over £200,000,000 have been incurred in the building of new towns, and Your Committee are apprehensive lest the success of the towns and the possibility of getting an adequate return on the public money invested in them may be prejudiced by the failure of the towns to attract industries necessary for their full economic development.
I draw the attention of the Minister to that. It raises a very serious problem. Here we have one public department opposing the policy of another public department. We have the Board of Trade taking one line and we have the Minister of Housing and Local Government doing all within his power to try to promote the satisfactory development of new towns.
I have always taken the view that we shall never get anywhere on the question of the satisfactory location of industry until the location of industry comes under the right hon. Gentleman's Department. If we are to have housing under one Department, then we must have industry with it. The two go side by side. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to look into this matter again. One or two new towns


have been fortunate enough to get industries easily, such as Hemel Hempstead, but other new towns are desperate, Harlow in particular. Only recently, thanks to the efforts of one member of the corporation, a change has taken place there. I urge the Minister to go into the matter generally.
The right hon. Gentleman heard the criticisms on the Second Reading of the Town Development Bill, and he has heard the criticisms from both sides of the House today. The success or failure of the new towns depends on getting industry to the new towns and industrial certificates issued whenever they are required.
The trouble is that the Board of Trade are becoming like the Treasury. They are only interested in getting right what they think is the policy, even though the facts may be wrong. The Board of Trade will ruin the right hon. Gentleman's good intentions, and a great deal of public money will be wasted, unless immediate steps are taken to see that some co-ordination between the two Government Departments is introduced. The best and most satisfactory co-ordination would be the handing of the location of industry section of the Board of Trade to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.
My last point is the impact on new towns of the raising of the rates of the. Public Works Loans Board. In one or two of the new towns which I have visited, extreme apprehension has been expressed about this. It has led to a very great problem in one new town regarding the rent of the industrial estates. This will be a deterring factor to anybody considering setting up new industries in the new towns, because of the increased rents as a result of the policy of the Treasury in raising the rate of interest of the Public Works Loans Board.
I should like to know what the right hon. Gentleman has to say about this. Although he may have won a victory over his colleagues on the question of the housing subsidies, we should like to know what he will do about the effect of the raising of the rate of interest on the new towns and other public works.
With those few words, I hope that the House will not think that I am in any way opposing this Bill. I am very much in favour of it though, like my hon. Friend the Member for Acton, I do not

think that it goes far enough. We should like the right hon. Gentleman to know that while we are vigilant and critical, we urge him to greater efforts and to greater successes in the building of the new towns. I assure him that what I have seen of the new towns in the last few months, particularly in Harlow, has led me to believe that a great deal is already being done and that a great change is taking place in the countryside to the benefit of the people who will live there.

9.5 p.m.

Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: Like the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly), I am a friend, in principle, of the new towns. Like him I am a member of the Council of the Town and Country Planning Association. Unlike him, only because he was not here in those days, I commended the principle of new towns in the debate on the original Bill in 1946, though I had something more critical to say, both about the detailed siting of towns and also the degree of preparation, or rather the lack of preparation, which preceded the choosing of sites for some of these new towns.
I want this evening to make two short points, the first of which has already been touched upon by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Vane) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine), who has given the House a characteristically vigorous speech and has emerged unscathed from the ripostes of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly).
The first concerns the question of the designation of future new town areas in regard to which some of this money may be spent. It is said by my hon. Friends that it is not right that Parliament should have no control over the designation of these sites, and I subscribe to that view, more particularly—and this point has not yet been mentioned—because the inquiry which the Minister has to hold under the 1946 Act has turned out to be peculiarly ineffective for the purpose for which it is designed.
It has been held by the House of Lords, in the case of Franklin v. the Minister of Town and Country Planning, generally known as the Stevenage case, that the Minister, in making an order designating an area as the site of a new town, is acting in a purely administrative capacity, and that no judicial or even quasi-judicial duty is cast upon him.
If a Minister acts in a purely administrative capacity, it must follow, according to our constitutional doctrine, that he has a direct responsibility to Parliament. It is only where he acts in a judicial or quasi-judicial capacity that he can be or should be relieved of that responsibility.
It follows from this that one or both of two things should be done; either, as my hon. Friends have suggested, there should be a true responsibility of the Minister to Parliament in regard to the designation of any future areas as sites of new towns, or that Section 1 and the First Schedule of the 1946 Act should be amended so as to provide for an inquiry in which full force and effect can be given to these matters.
Possibly, the best course would be to take both remedies—to make the Minister responsible to Parliament, but, at the same time, improve the procedure for inquiries so that there can be a detailed sifting of the evidence in a quasi-judicial capacity, so that mistakes are not made in regard to the designations of sites for new towns, and so that full effect be given, which has not always been given in the past, to considerations of water, sewerage, transport and other vital considerations of that nature.
My second point relates to the effect of the new towns already designated on adjacent areas to them, because, of course, it is very important for this House, in approving the expenditure of this vast sum of money, to be spent in the short space of two years upon the new towns by the development corporations, to have regard to whether it is to be done at the expense of the adjacent areas. Though it is a very good thing to have new towns, it is a very bad thing to arrest the natural progress, development and provision of amenities for old towns or villages in the adjacent areas.
The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) stressed the necessity of having up-to-date urban amenities for the new towns, but I hope he will not be backward in saying also, that there should be provision of up-to-date amenities for the already existing communities which are adjacent to the new towns, but do not come within the designated area.
My own constituency happens to be a particularly good example of this because, without having any new town within its area, it is ringed about with them. Harlow, Stevenage and Hatfield-Welwyn all immediately surround my constituency; and in that part of Hertfordshire, of course, we are very much affected by the impact of the development programmes that are being carried on, in and for the new towns.
More particularly is this the case with sewerage schemes, on which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary touched in his opening observations this evening. This immediate post-war period should have been a period of great and rapid progress in the eastern part of Hertfordshire in the provision of sewerage schemes. It is certainly not the fault of the local authorities that this has not been so. It is rather due to the preference given to the schemes of the new towns corporations and the uncertainty into which all has been cast by reason of the time which the corporations have taken to make up their minds as to what they require, and to plan the projects to implement those desires.
On this point, I should like to cite one very brief matter by way of illustration. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government knows that I have previously referred to other aspects of this problem within that part of Hertfordshire. The only aspect to which I will refer this evening is one which is a striking example of the impact of the new town operations on the provision of amenities in the adjoining areas.
In the rural district of Ware, as long ago as February, 1946, commendably soon after the war, the local authority submitted a scheme for the disposal of sewage in the three parishes of Wareside, Hunsdon, and Widford. This matter was progressing when in April, 1949, the Harlow New Town Development Corporation stated that they were contemplating obtaining a water supply from a site adjacent to the proposed disposal works at Widford. There we have a direct conflict of interest between the new and the old; and there is some responsibility upon the Minister to see that the needs of the old are not sacrificed to the more grandiose and spectacular concept of the new.
What happened? In December, 1950, when the party opposite were in office, the Ministry agreed to call a conference of the interested local authorities and representatives of the Harbour Corporation. That conference has not even yet been called and the local authorities are still waiting for the Ministry to give a decision on the application in respect of the sewerage scheme. Meanwhile, the Harlow New Town Development Corporation, who found that the well at Widford was insufficient for their water supply, are now applying for approval for the sinking of trial bore-holes in other villages in that part of Hertfordshire. As my right hon. Friend knows, there has already been a very expensive inquiry into this scheme. This will necessitate a further inquiry, further expense upon the rates and further delays to the projects of the local authorities.
As I have said, I am by no means opposed to new towns; in fact, I am strongly in favour of the principle, and I appreciate as well as any one that there are difficulties in these matters. But it is a long time since this Act came into force; it is now nearly six years, and we really should have got past these growing pains which, indeed, are so much more painful for the neighbours of the new town corporations than they are even for the corporations themselves.
I appreciate, of course, that in this as in other matters my right hon. Friend has a legacy which he has inherited from his predecessor in the late Administration; and, of course, a lot of these matters date back to those days. But in approving this very large sum for new town corporations we look to see the balance held more fairly and more evenly between new and old by the Government which is now in power. Representations have been made to me from time to time by my constituents, and I could not and shall not remain quiescent when representations are made on matters vital to their well-being.
Whatever the physical state of development that can be achieved by these new towns, they cannot prosper as an isolated and privileged community receiving preferential treatment at the expense of those around them. They cannot, in other words, thrive if they are constructed on a basis of injustice. I therefore ask my right hon. Friend not to tax the good will and enthusiasm that I,

among others, feel for the principle of new towns, by making things difficult for the old communities which live adjacent to them.
I ask that sympathetic and urgent attention be given to problems of the sort that I have brought to my right hon. Friend's notice this evening, so that we may have not only progress in the new towns but progress which is long overdue in those communities that live alongside.

9.18 p.m.

Mr. J. Slater: The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith) referred to the legacy that had been left to his right hon. Friend by the previous Administration. I think that the Minister, instead of receiving a legacy as suggested by the hon. Gentleman, has come in for a good inheritance. My reason for saying that is that I come from a county that was known at one time as a distressed area. That is the county of Durham. In that county we have two new towns, Aycliffe and Peterlee. The hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine) made great play of the fact that a million tons of coal had been sterilised in order that a new town might be built on top of 30 million tons of coal.
I want to give the hon. Member some advice. If he reads the new coal plan for the whole of the country, he will see what will happen in the county of Durham so far as the new town development of Peterlee is concerned. There it will be noted that men have to be brought from the west of the county to the east, where this new town is being built. It is impossible for the Minister or the new towns development corporations to begin to build the new towns on the East Coast on top of the sea and even on top of the pit heaps.
I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree—because he knows the county very well—that a very good job is being done in Durham by the development corporation. Aycliffe, which is in my constituency, was allocated 10,000 inhabitants in the first place, and there is every prospect of that figure rising to 20,000. We have people moving there from all parts of the county and one of the reasons why we have had such a migration is because Aycliffe new town is in close proximity to the Aycliffe Trading Estate. Many of its inhabitants have come from the South and from the Midlands to take up employment there; but the greater percentage


of the people in residence in this new town are coming from the west of my county because of the depression which is now presenting itself there.
One of the greatest difficulties experienced by our people is that which has been stressed by other hon. Members who have spoken in connection with this Bill, namely, the rents being charged. It is folly to think that the average person with a family can afford the high rents which are being charged by the corporations in these new towns today. I am not seeking for one moment to blame the development corporations for that. They are in a similar position to that of a private builder. Their houses, like council houses, are subject to the Rent Restriction Acts, which means that once the rents are fixed they cannot be increased, and in fixing them allowance must be made for the continually rising cost of labour, materials and maintenance.
If the new towns are to develop in accordance with the ideals set up under the New Towns Act, the cost has to be more equitably distributed. Those of us who have these new towns in our constituencies know that these problems are worrying the corporations very much indeed. If costs increase as they are doing at the moment and high rents are to prevail, instead of having a mixed community within our new towns we shall have new towns which will become purely residential areas.
While I welcome this Bill in its entirity—because I know full well what is happening as far as the new town in my constituency is concerned—I visualise the time when such development as is taking place will be of greater advantage than it is at the moment. I hope that the Minister will give every assistance he possibly can in the matter of these rents, which are becoming so high that they are almost impossible for our people to meet.

9.24 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: I join with my hon. Friends in welcoming this Bill. Before I deal with certain points which I know are worrying quite a number of hon. Members on this side of the House, I should like to deal with a point which has been raised by two hon. Members opposite.
The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith) suggested that when there

was a Labour Government in this country it made a muddle of these new towns. He has not stayed to find out if there is any answer to the allegations he made. It surprises me very much that someone should come into the House, make a speech and hurry off.

Mr. Douglas Marshall: The hon. Member wished me to apologise for him.

Miss Herbison: The new towns which were really thought out and begun by this side of the House were a great conception. They meant for many of our people good homes in pleasant surroundings and with work near at hand. That was the conception, and in the last few years much has been done in the new towns to carry out the things in which we believe. There is still much to be done in the new towns, but I am certain that with such a promising beginning the end will be good.
The hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine) does not seem to know very much about the mining areas of this country. I myself come from a very big mining area, and I know the very great difficulty which has always been experienced in finding a site even for a small housing scheme. I also know what happened in my mining area, and in mining areas like Durham, in the wonderful days of private enterprise. Peterlee was really based on a book called, "Farewell Squalor." Let us see what has happened in Peterlee and compare that with what has happened in the big mining district of Lanarkshire where I live.
The hon. Member for Billericay was worried about one million tons of coal being sterilised. That is very serious. No one on this side of the House would wish one ton of coal to be sterilised if that could be prevented, but in the area from which I come millions of tons of coal were sterilised in the days of private enterprise because the coal owners worked the rich seams and left the others, which are under water at this present time. Not only that. Our local authorities when they wanted to build in these mining areas after the First World War could not find any land under which there was no coal or, where the coal had been taken, full subsidence had not taken place. They then had to go to the coal owners to obtain land upon which to build houses, and they had to pay many thousands


of pounds for that land because of the sterilisation of the coal. For this million tons of coal that has been sterilised for Peterlee, the development corporation has not asked for one penny from the National Coal Board. That is my first point.
The second point is that Durham is a very big mining area. The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Slater) has explained very carefully that there is a movement of the mining population. In that area it would be quite Impossible to find any site for a new town which would not inevitably mean the sterilising of some coal. If one wants to develop that area and our miners to live in houses that are worthy of them and not in the shocking squalor and one-roomed and two-roomed houses which I have still in my mining village, then everyone ought to be proud of the steps taken by my Friends in the late Government to ensure that Peterlee would have success. I hope we shall not find the hon. Member for Billericay making the same sort of criticism inside or outside the House about Peterlee as he has made tonight.

Mr. Vane: Leaving coal on one side, will not the hon. Lady agree that the great danger of Peterlee is not that it will develop as a new town in the way she has described, but that it will simply become another great suburb to Horden and the other collieries?

Miss Herbison: I was dealing with the criticism by the hon. Member for Billericay about the foolishness of sterilising one million tons of coal. There may be other criticisms—I have not time to deal with them tonight—but it is certain that this site was chosen because of the great need not only for houses for miners but also for diversification of industry in that area.

Mr. Braine: I wonder if—

Miss Herbison: I am sorry but I cannot give way. I have to speak and the Minister has to reply. I want to deal with one or two other points, and I am glad to see the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland in his place.

Mr. Braine: rose—

Miss Herbison: I am sorry, but I have not one minute in which to give way.
I should be grateful if the Minister who is to reply will deal with this. We are

proud of what has taken place at East Kilbride, one of our two new towns. There we are providing a place where the people of Glasgow, many of whom have been living in overcrowded conditions and thousands of whom have been living in slum conditions, will find the type of home about which I spoke at the beginning. Great strides have also been taken in the diversification of industry there.
Scotland has another new town at Glenrothes, and I am not quite so happy about what is happening there. That new town is not unlike Peterlee. There is a very big mining development there. What is worrying me is whether we shall have in Glenrothes and in the surrounding area what we who have come from mining areas have always known. Is there to be the diversification of industry which we all want, not only in Glenrothes but in every new town, or will Glenrothes merely provide houses for the miners who are already living there and for the miners who will be moved from Lanarkshire?
Until industries were brought into Development Areas, there was no work in mining areas for the daughters of miners and none whatever for the sons of miners who did not want to follow their fathers and become miners. Can we be certain that everything will be done to bring into Glenrothes a diversification of industry to ensure that the daughters of miners will have work and be able to stay at home and enjoy the comforts of home and that there will be a choice of work for the sons and that they will not be forced willy-nilly into the mines?
If that is the wish of the present Government, there are one or two things which they must take into consideration. The cut in capital investment will hit very hard any attempt at diversification of industry, which means the provision of new factories, in these new towns in Scotland or in England and Wales. Even in the Development Areas we are already finding that the increase in the bank rate is making it impossible even for factories which have already gone into the Development Areas to carry on. This increase in the Bank rate is reflected in the increased interest which the development corporations will have to pay on the money which they borrow from the Public Works Loan Board. It is because of that that I feel, although we are now going to vote another £50 million for our


new towns, it may be sabotaged completely by the previous actions of this Government.
I would say to the Minister of Housing and Local Government that it is not enough to get an extra £50 million for these new towns for the next two years. If he and his colleagues are really interested in the development of these towns, they will make representations to the Chancellor to show him clearly the effect on these new towns of his decision to raise the Bank rate. I hope some of these points will be dealt with by the Minister.

9.36 p.m.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Harold Macmillan): It is normally the purpose of a Government to get their Bill and normally the object of the Opposition to delay or prevent it. Today it seems that this has to some extent been partially reversed, and, therefore, I must first of all resist the temptation to talk out my own Bill. If I am not able to deal in any great detail with many of the administrative points that have been raised, I hope hon. Members on both sides of the House will acquit me of any discourtesy. I should be very happy to discuss details with hon. Members personally and separately, and if I am not able to refer to them I will write to them on detailed matters.
The object of this Bill is to vote another £50 million in order that the work of the new towns should continue. It is perhaps a convenient occasion for some general discussion of the new towns, but, as Mr. Deputy-Speaker reminded us earlier, a detailed discussion of the administration of the new towns would not strictly be in order. Therefore, I shall keep myself strictly in order to conform with the views of Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
There are a number of matters to which I hope I may be allowed to make one or two observations. First I should like to welcome the speech with which the hon. Member for Welling borough (Mr. Lindgren) opened the case for the Opposition. I was very glad indeed when he assured us we were to get this Measure quickly. I understood that he had some other reason, for I saw hovering about one or two of his colleagues who were interested more in steel than in new towns, but they will no doubt

appear on the scene when the curtain goes up for that part of our night's entertainment.
Meanwhile I welcome the hon. Member's support and will answer his questions. The first was the position regarding Congleton. He said it had been designated a new town by my predecessor. Perhaps I might refresh his memory. That is not quite accurate. The formal designation had not been made by my predecessor, and, indeed, he had only held informal discussions with some of the authorities. An inquiry had not been held and, therefore, no question of designation existed. I have not pursued for the moment this matter any further except again informally. For one thing, I would rather like to get this Bill and the £50 million for these new towns.
There are various methods by which the purposes underlying the new towns are now being approached. In one way or another, these areas will, I feel certain, have to, and be glad to, contribute to the problems of overspill populations from the great cities. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to leave the point there, because it would not help to get what we both want if I were to go further into it at this stage.
He spoke about the progress at Acton. If I had not got to know him so well, although so recently, on the Committee upstairs, I would feel that he was always trying to depress me. I have discovered that that is not his object. He asked me whether I wanted to make progress with housing in the new towns and he asked for a pledge that we should build speedily and rapidly, that nothing would stand in the way and everything would be swept aside for a great, powerful drive to build up the housing of the people. He and his Friends were always telling us that it was impossible to increase the housing. I am trying to, and I want to do so very much.
I have watched with very great interest the development of the new towns. They are convenient pitches upon which I hope quite a lot of runs may be scored, and that they will be applauded, if we are successful, equally by him and his Friends and hon. Members in other parts of the House. The doubts and scepticisms being expressed as to whether it can be done have been coming not from this side


of the House but all from the hon. Gentleman and his Friends.

Mr. Sparks: There has been a change of Government.

Mr. Macmillan: That is why I am getting on with the job. He asked me about one or two substantial points, which I must mention. With regard to Hemel Hempstead, any changes in the personnel of the Corporation has no such purpose as he has in mind. It is true that in one of the earlier conceptions, perhaps the first conception, of the particular new towns, the idea was to tie or link them with particular towns in the London area, or just outside London. He mentioned Acton, Willesden, Wembley, Hendon and Harrow. If it was a reason for having one member to represent them on the Corporation, it seems to be a reason for having them all. I know the difficulty of the rival claims.
We have considered the new towns in the London group, serving not merely this area or that particular borough but serving the London County Council as well. I was very much oppressed by both these sets of claims, and I shall try to see that a fair balance is kept among them all in regard to the overspill population as a whole. That is wiser than trying to associate them too closely with any particular borough. It would make the industrial problem more difficult on this narrow field.
I was asked whether there was any political label in the changes that are being made. I altogether deny that any form of such change has been made for any such reason. In the new town of Peterlee, I have appointed a very distinguished opponent of my party to take the place of the retiring chairman. I do not want to go into this point further. If there had been any question of political favouritism it would be in the past rather than in the present.
I was asked about industry by the hon. Members for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly). Sedgefield (Mr. Slater) and by the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison). The hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) said that no industries are coming to four of the new towns. That is true, but in the case of Corby one could almost say the industry is there on so huge a scale that it is of rather a different character from the other new

towns. Peterlee must always be mainly a mining town, and this applies equally to Glenrothes.
I was speaking only today to one of the members of the Peterlee Corporation about the possibility of getting a light industry employing 30 per cent. of women and 70 per cent. men which would make it possible to employ as a reserve older men or those of insufficient physical strength to go into the mines. Glenrothes is rather better off, because in addition to the work in the mines there is substantial development on a paper mill which provides just that amount of extra employment that we would like to see as a stand by. Some £1,350 has been authorised, and new building is about to commence. So there we have exactly the kind of thing that the hon. Lady and I have in mind. I had a great deal to do with Aycliffe when there was a R.O.F. factory there. It is therefore the basis of an industrial estate and we hope it will develop in that way.
We should not be too pessimistic about the London towns. Progress has been quite substantial and, although it is true that there are rival claims, yet there is a background to that which we cannot altogether forget. I remember very well the days of the distressed areas which became the special areas and then the development areas. It is difficult to resist the claims, though it may well be that in the allocation of industry the Board of Trade have gone too far and that some correction is required in favour of the new towns. Nevertheless, some progress is being made.
There are substantial industries—31 completed in the London towns and 21 now building. In Harlow there are at the moment seven firms occupying 80,000 square feet and 12 new firms about to occupy 140,000 square feet, so in that case the progress is fairly satisfactory. There are some advantages, as well as some disadvantages in the present position. The very fact that so much weight has to be given to export or to re-armament needs gives the sponsoring Departments working together that much more opportunity for guiding industry where we want it than in days when capital investment is absolutely free. So we have opportunities which, if we can take them, may be of advantage to the working of the new towns.
My hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine)—

Mr. Sparks: Will the right hon. Gentleman say something about—

Mr. Macmillan: —made an interesting and spirited speech. He asked a number of questions and reflected upon the history of the new towns. He will forgive me if I am careful not to raise any passions or emotions which might lead us astray and delay my Bill. I will only say that there was a fair and good debate about the past. However, I share a number of his views in a general way which I do not wish to discuss tonight because we want to build for the future. A tremendous amount of mistakes have been made, of course—I think hon. Gentlemen on both sides will agree about that—and there are still some theoretical follies in my view which are making ideology of what should be an instrument to do what we want.
I am not going to enter tonight into the argument about freeholders and leaseholders. I am always encouraged when one of my predecessors, the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), is always attacking the leasehold system and saying how much he prefers the freehold, and so I have prayed him in aid for one particular Bill, to which my hon. Friend calls attention, which is now before the Committee upstairs.
Broadly speaking, however, my hon. Friend and my hon. Friends the Members for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith) and Westmorland (Mr. Vane) asked me much the same question: what am I going to do about the new towns. It was stated in the debate that on a purely theoretical assumption the coal problem does not exist. I must not fall into a similar mistake. I must not fall into the purely theoretical assumption that the problem of the legislative programme does not exist.
There is time and only time, for me so far as the new towns are concerned, at this moment to ask the House to pass this one-Clause Measure. But I assure my hon. Friend that that does not mean that I, naturally, am not considering, contriving and wondering by what means, administrative or other, we can press on to get the full reward and development of these ventures. If it should be possible or necessary, I

should not hesitate to ask the House to pass legislation to improve or alter the position, but I do not think it right or possible to do so at this point in the session with so crowded a programme.
Perhaps, therefore, my hon. Friend will allow me just to say in conclusion what is the answer to the problem posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and other hon. Members: Have I, the Minister, the right to designate any number of new towns I like? Is there any real inquiry, or am I the judge and the jury? Is this a satisfactory situation? I can only answer that in my view—I did not take a very great part in this legislation when it went through—It does not seem to me very satisfactory. Indeed, all, and far more than, this money is committed by the designation of the towns themselves. It is not a satisfactory situation. I certainly do not intend to make use of it in this way. I shall decide, perhaps, some day to see whether this can be tidied up and strengthened, but meanwhile we must go on. These houses are going to be built, and these factories are to be built.
All these matters are in my mind, and if I have an opportunity I shall certainly not hesitate to ask this Parliament, as it would be natural to do after a review of a machine which has been working satisfactorily for a certain time, to see whether changes are needed in order to strengthen it, but certainly not in order to destroy it. I hope that with that broad and general gift to all sides of the House, hon. Members will now agree to vote us the Bill.

Mr. Sparks: Will the Minister say something about rents? He still has seven minutes left.

Mr. Macmillan: I have the great danger of the Financial Resolution. Really, that problem would come under the whole question of rates and rents and the effect of the money policy on costs, all of which are an immense field. I think that would be better discussed on the Second Reading of the Housing Subsidy Bill, where we would have a very good run and which we hope to have soon after Easter.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Committed to a Committee of the whole House—[Mr. Oakshott]—for Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — NEW TOWNS [MONEY]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).—[Queen's Recommendation signified.]

[Colonel Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to increase the amount of the advances which may be made under section twelve of the New Towns Act, 1946, it is expedient to authorise any increase, attributable to the provisions of the said Act of the present Session raising to one hundred million pounds the limit of fifty million pounds imposed by the said section twelve in respect of such advances, in the sums which, under or by virtue of the said Act of 1946, are to be or may be issued out of the Consolidated Fund, defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament, raised by borrowing, remitted or paid into the Exchequer—[Mr. Marples.]

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow

Orders of the Day — PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

Mr. Alexander Anderson discharged from the Committee of Public Accounts; Mr. Blenkinsop added.—[Mr. Redmayne.]

Orders of the Day — IRON AND STEEL PRICES ORDER

9.56 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Iron and Steel Prices Order, 1952 (S.I., 1952, No. 361), dated 25th February, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 25th February, be annulled.
This and the following Prayer—
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Bolts, Nuts, &amp;c., Prices Order, 1952 (S.I., 1952, No. 362), dated 25th February, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 25th February, be annulled.—
are closely related. May I have your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, whether it is possible to discuss them together?

Mr. Speaker: Yes, I think that will be a convenient course for the House.

Mr. Strauss: We desire to move these two Prayers against these two Orders, because in our view there is no good reason for making such big increases in

the prices of iron and steel at the present time, because we believe that the increases are bound to have a harmful effect on our national economy and because we are convinced that the motives that have inspired these increases are political rather than economic.
We have reached these conclusions on the facts before us as we know them, and not because of any action taken by Mr. Hardie, the ex-Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation. Nor do we take this view because it was shared at one time by the Corporation itself, until the Minister over-persuaded them. We maintain that where there is disagreement between the Minister and the Corporation of a nationalised industry, we have to consider the matter in dispute on its merits objectively; indeed, I think that on one minor point connected with the problem—the subsidy on imported finished steel—the Corporation were wrong and the Minister right. The Minister must always be free to reject the advice of the Corporation if he thinks it is wrong, and justify his action to Parliament, and tonight we are asking him to justify certain decisions he made to increase the prices of iron and steel because, in our opinion, those decisions were wholly wrong.
I want to say in passing, in regard to the way the Minister brought the iron and steel proposals to the House, that he misled the House in his account of the discussions which led up to his statement on 25th February. He was then very anxious to show that his decision was supported by the Iron and Steel Corporation, although not by Mr. Hardie. He said:
there have been, and I repeat it emphatically in the House tonight, no differences of policy whatsover between the Corporation and myself. I emphasise the word 'Corporation'."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th February, 1952; Vol. 496, c. 824.]
Whereupon, Mr. Hardie made a statement to the Press in which he challenged the truth of that assertion. He said:
There was a clear difference of policy between the Corporation and the Minister which was expressed in my letter to him of 24th January, when I informed him, writing on behalf of a unanimous Corporation, one member being absent, that it disagreed with his policy of making any immediate increase in iron and steel prices.
In view of that, a number of my hon. Friends and I pressed the Minister a little later as to the truth of this


allegation by Mr. Hardie that the Minister was not speaking the truth. We pursued the matter in the House at Question time on 10th March and asked whether, in fact, Mr. Hardie had conveyed to the Minister in that letter of 24th January the fact that the Corporation as a whole, and unanimously, had at that time opposed any increase in our new steel prices.
I do not wish to read the full reply of the right hon. Gentleman. It was a long one; it was woolly and evasive. When I pressed him to say categorically whether the allegations of Mr. Hardie was correct or not, he said it was a difficult question to answer and refused to say whether it was true or untrue. Unless the right hon. Gentleman has something more to say tonight, I must state my firm conviction that Mr. Hardie was stating the truth when he told the Minister in his letter the view of the Corporation and that the Minister, to put it mildly, was not quiet honest with the House in his account of the matter.
While I think it necessary to say this, I want to make it clear once more that we are asking the House to consider this matter tonight on its merits and irrespective of the views and opinions of the Iron and Steel Corporation or Mr. Hardie at that time or any other time. We think that if the House considers it on that basis it will come to the conclusion that the Prayer we are moving is correct and that the price increases are not justified.
Before I come to details, I wish to state two principles against which it seems to me that this matter should be considered. I think they are principles which are agreed on all sides of the House. The first is that the maximum prices fixed by the Minister for iron and steel should be such as to enable the industry to pay its way and to make proper reserves. That principle may not be applicable in times of slump, when it might be desirable for the Corporation deliberately to make a loss in the national interest. But that principle certainly applies now.
The other principle, and this is all-important, is that the decision to increase prices of such basic raw materials as iron and steel must have regard to the general inflationary effects which are bound to follow, and to the extent to which they

will make it more difficult to maintain or to increase our exports. This latter consideration is obviously of particular importance at the present time.
What are the facts? This is the case of the Government. The Minister of Supply told us that in this present year there will be certain increases in costs in making iron and steel which should be covered by higher prices for the products of the iron and steel industry. He said that there would be an increased cost in respect of the steel and steel-making materials imported into this country of £46 million. He told us that home costs, wages, transport, fuel and scrap would be an additional £29 million, making a total of £75 million.
The Minister said that he proposed to recover £56 million from increases in price amounting approximately to £4 a ton. The first thing I would say on this calculation is that the £46 million in respect of the import of steel and steelmaking materials relates largely, I understand, to material coming from the United States of America. But most of that material, about two-thirds of it, is coming in the second part of the year. I wish to ask the Minister whether in fact this big increase in the cost of imports amounting to £46 million is, for the most of it, to take place after July and is not taking place now. If so, it means that he is asking the industry, or permitting the industry, by increasing the price, to recover substantial costs which will not operate until later on in the year.
In regard to the home costs, which he says amount to £29 million, I am not at all satisfied whether, if the Corporation had been allowed to continue its reorganisation work, many economies could not have been brought into effect, anyhow towards the end of the year, which would have saved a good deal of that money. I have never been satisfied that the transport of steel from the Northeast Coast to South Wales, for example, which takes place today, is wholly necessary. Moreover, I am doubtful whether in that calculation full account has been taken of the economies which should be derived from all the new plant established in the last few years.
I should now like to look at the other side of the picture. The industry has been making record profits during the last year. The Minister gave figures to


the House which showed that in the year ending 30th September profits were at the rate of £63 million a year. That compares with £53 million the previous year and £42 million for the year before that. I must confess that, although I was in close touch with the iron and steel industry during that time, I was most surprised, as I think most people were, at the very heavy increase in profit made by the industry last year.
It is true that part of that arose from engineering—that is accepted—but the great bulk of this came from the manufacture of iron and steel products. It was only in August last year that there came into operation an increase in iron and steel prices which I had authorised shortly before. That increase amounted to a total sum of about £66 million.
I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not use the argument, which he used the other day in the House, that because I increased the prices substantially in August he is entitled to increase them substantially today. Indeed, the reverse is true. Because I made such a big increase in August largely in anticipation of costs which had not yet operated, that is all the more reason why there should not be a further big increase today.

Mr. Spencer Summers: Would it not be more accurate to say that the Minister told the House that had he used the formula used by the late Government to deal with prices, the rise would, in fact, have been greater than that which has been announced?

Mr. Strauss: I do not deny that, but he also, I think, by implication suggested that I made big increases in prices and therefore he might move in a similar direction today.

Mr. Summers: That was not said.

The Minister of Supply (Mr. Duncan Sandys): I never said that, so I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not waste time on that argument.

Mr. Strauss: I am glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that. I thought that was implied in his statement if it was not said. I think that most people reading that statement would think so. If it was not implied, well and good. It is not an essential part of my argument. I was merely saying that I hoped that that argument would not be made tonight, and I still hope that it will not.
The point is that I made that substantial increase in August in anticipation, partly, of rises which had not taken place. That means that the high rate of profits which was being made by the industry up to the end of September is likely to be increased in subsequent months, because the new increase in prices took effect only from the middle of August. I shall be very surprised, when the new returns are made for the last three months of the year of the profits made by the industry during that period, if there is not a substantially higher rate than the £63 million of the previous year. My guess is that they will be round about £75 million to £80 million a year.
Therefore, the industry is making enormous profits today. It should not be forgotten that the value of the stock of this industry in the hands of the public—the Iron and Steel Compensation Stock—is £240 million. Interest has to be paid on that at 3½ per cent. Therefore, what the industry has to pay out in respect of this stock is about £10 million. I maintain that the industry is making about £75 million a year—an enormous figure.
The question arises whether, in view of that, the right hon. Gentleman, with Cabinet backing, as he told us, was justified in making the increase in price today such a big one, as it is bound to have a most damaging effect on the economy of our country. We believe that it would have been far better and right for the right hon. Gentleman to have waited to see what the profits figures were for the last quarter of the year, and then to adjust any price increase which then might have been necessary in such a way as to put a smaller burden and a lesser handicap on the consuming industries of this country, which, be it remembered, are largely exporting industries.
An increase in price of about £4 per ton means that our engineering industries, in their effort to maintain their exports and even increase them, as they are asked by the Government quite rightly to do, are going to face very serious difficulties. It means that the cost of making a motorcar will go up quite significantly. I do not know what the figure is, but it is probably something about £5 to £10 per car, dependent upon the type. We


know that the motor-car industry is in great difficulties because of the narrowing of the Australian market. We know that there is intense competition from the Continent and that the motor-car industry is going to be further handicapped in maintaining its export markets by having a substantial increase in costs imposed upon it.
That applies, of course, to every exporting industry in the engineering field, and the same problems will arise there. If the right hon. Gentleman puts the argument—I am not suggesting that he has done so far, but it is likely to be put forward by hon. Members opposite—that the price of steel still compares favourably with the price of steel in most other countries, I would say, in anticipation of that argument, that we have had a peculiar advantage in the post-war years in having steel prices quite substantially below those in other countries.
We have done that by our controls, and particularly by our control of the price of scrap, which kept the price of steel down; and it has been very largely because of the low price of steel in this country during the last five or six years that so many of our export industries have been able to flourish and capture new markets. Today, that gap between the British price and the foreign price will be very much narrowed by the action taken by the right hon. Gentleman, and we will have lost some of that advantage which we have had up till now.
But it is not only the export trade which will be damaged. Our whole economy will be affected. There will be harmful consequences at home. The railways are big consumers of iron and steel, and this increase in price means that they will have to pay something like £2 million to £3 million a year more for the steel they buy. That will have to come, eventually, out of the fares paid by the passengers and the freight rates charged for goods, which will have a generally inflationary effect on our economy.
The armaments industry has to be paid for by the taxpayer, and it will have to pay some £3 million or some £4 million a year more for the steel it purchases as a result of these orders made by the right hon. Gentleman. That burden is borne

directly by the taxpayer, and it will have to appear somewhere or other, either in this Budget or in the next Budget to be presented by the Chancellor.
I think it is clear that, in view of the effect on our industries, both export and home, it would have been desirable, and we maintain still is desirable, to avoid, if possible, any increase in the price of iron and steel more than is absolutely necessary, and we say that, in view of the very heavy profits made by the iron and steel industry today, it would have been possible to avoid placing such a heavy burden as is now proposed on the industries which consume iron and steel.
Further, we say that this increase could and would have been avoided if the major preoccupation of the Ministry of Supply at this moment were not that of finding ways to hand over this publicly-owned industry to private profit interests. That is one Election promise it appears the party opposite are determined to carry out, and it seems to be the only one they and their friends care twopence about.
In order to effect this operation it is, from their point of view, obviously desirable, and may be essential, for the iron and steel concerns to be able to present balance sheets with profits fat enough to tempt private investors. I maintain that it is largely for that purpose that this increase we are considering today has been made.
I should like to quote a few words from a very interesting leader of the "Financial Times" of Monday, 24th March. The writer was dealing with certain published accounts of the big iron and steel companies, and he said:
In general, the statements have indicated a strongly rising trend of profits in the steel industry. And while the former shareholders are no doubt pleased to find that at least one nationalised industry is operating on a profitable basis, they may be excused if they now feel a fresh twinge of nostalgic regret over the expropriation of their investments.
We know they feel that, and the Government are doing all they can to help put this profitable industry back in their hands. The "Financial Times" leader goes on:
Richard Thomas and Baldwins has reported a profit of £5,323,000 for six months against £7,300,000 for the previous twelve months. Stewarts and Lloyds earned £8,000,000 in nine months, against £8,648,000 in the previous year. Hadfields has increased its annual profit rate from £265,000 to £404,000; and John Summers had a trading profit of


£2,852,000 for nine months, compared with £3,076,000 for a full year.
They are heavy increases in profits.
The leader writer then came to this conclusion, after giving some of the reasons for the increases:
The increased profitability of the industry will, at any rate, tend to ease the task of the present Government in seeking a solution of the difficult problem of returning the steel industry to private ownership.
I think that gentleman let the cat out of the bag, and it seems to us, as there is no other good reason for making these big increases today, the purpose is that indicated by the writer of that article. It is, in fact, to ease the task of the Government in de-nationalising the steel industry, and it is for that purpose and at the request, I assume, of Steel House that these Orders have been made. We look upon these Orders as the first step in the attempt of Her Majesty's Government to de-nationalise the industry.
In short, our view is this. This industry is today so prosperous that there is no economic need to make such big increases as are embodied in these Orders. We say, further, that these increases will have a marked inflationary effect on our economy as a whole and that they will handicap it and, at a critical moment, handicap the expansion of our exports on which the Government rightly lay such stress. We are forced to the conclusion, therefore, that in these Orders for price increases, against which we are praying, the Conservative Party are, as usual, putting private profit interest above the public interest.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. Robson Brown: I followed with extreme interest what has been said by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss). I would say at the outset that it is right and proper for this House at all times to consider any positive increase in the basic prices of any basic material used in industry. Steel is, indeed, a basic material for a very large number of finishing industries of the country, and what happens to steel reflects itself undoubtedly in the selling prices and the costs of other industries and also affects the export trade. Those points are well taken and are all agreed upon.
The right hon. Gentleman also developed two principles. The first was that maximum prices should be at a level and of an order which would permit the

industry properly to pay its way and to make proper provision for reserves and modernisation. It is upon that theme that I intend to address my remarks this evening. I believe that in the interests of industry and of the public this question of the increase in steel prices should be thoroughly ventilated tonight, that it should be taken away from the realm of party politics and that we should discuss the figures dispassionately and fairly upon their merits. If I cannot prove by what I say that what has been done by the Minister is reasonable, then the Opposition have the right to make what they can of it as a party issue either on the Floor of this House or in the country.
In my opinion—and I am only speaking for myself in this matter—I have felt that in the last five or six years the steel trade has kept its prices at too low a general level. I believe that if those prices had been measurably increased in those days, greater profits would have accrued to the industry without any damaging effect upon the finishing industries, with greater profits earned abroad from the export trade at a time when premiums upon export trade were unlimited, and those moneys could have been well employed within the industry today for expansion and modernisation.
What worries and concerns me now is that the opportunity to reap that kind of golden harvest is fast disappearing. Therefore, I say positively that in the past steel prices have been kept upon the low side. I readily admit that that has been an advantage to many of the finishing industries, and I feel that some of them have made very high profits at the expense of steel. Much of the money that has been made in those other industries could well have been ploughed back into the steel industry.
Let me take the right hon. Gentleman's argument with regard to the breakdown of the £76 million of increased cost. He takes a figure of £46 million which is represented generally by increases of iron ore and scrap and the financing of imports of foreign steel, in particular those from the United States of America. He knows from his experience as a former Minister of Supply that iron ore costs have recently doubled, that scrap prices have doubled, and that those prices are now having to


be paid at this moment for the material coming in the country.
At the same time, the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that we hope in the current year that most of the steel from the United States of America will be delivered, and I do not suppose he is suggesting that because the deliveries of the steel will largely come in the last quarter—although much will come in the next two or three months—that should be financed at the tail end of the financial year, and that the prices at that time should again be increased to meet one particular contingency. I do not think he meant that.
The Minister was very wise in taking account of the cost of those charges now—he knew what they were going to be—and he applied them at the earliest appropriate moment. Let me now give some simple figures which prove conclusively the wisdom and judgment of the Minister and of the Iron and Steel Corporation. Let me take first of all the argument of the right hon. Member for Vauxhall, when he said we shall destroy the present competitive position of the steel industry. I quote the international and home trade price comparison for steel. The figures are extraordinarily illuminating at this time. I shall not bore the House with more than one or two comparisons of very vital material.
First of all, sheets. Our price is £40 2s. 6d.; United States of America, £40 16s. 0d.; France, £49 10s. 8d.; Germany, £44 2s. 1d.; and Belgium, £52 5s. 0d. Angles: United Kingdom, £27 19s. 6d.; United States of America, £35 4s. 0d.; France, £36 0s. 5d.; Germany, £31 19s. 7d.; and Belgium, £31 9s. 11d. That is compared with our figure of £27 19s. 6d. Those figures speak eloquently for themselves. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Yes. It shows quite clearly that there is a margin even at this time for an increase in the price of British steel without damaging materially our competitive position with the rest of the world.
I should like to give another set of figures. These figures are the Board of Trade indices for wholesale prices and are taken for January, 1952, the latest figures available. Taking 1938 at 100 per cent., steel is only 231; coal is 297, and all other articles are 330 per cent. There again, it shows that there are ample

margins to take care of these particular prices without any injurious effect. Taking the pure arithmetic of the matter, I should like to refer to the Iron and Steel Board's calculations. I am using the right hon. Gentleman's own figure and making it a round figure of £65 million instead of £63 million. I understand that in one of Mr. Hardie's letters he does quote the figure of £65 million, and for my purposes I am prepared to take that figure.
In that gross figure of £65 million, if we take into account the fact that it includes all the profits of all the ancillary plant of the great companies—bridge-building and everything else altogether outside steel-making; and also certain nonrecurring profits which will not repeat themselves in the present current financial year—and that out of this figure of £65 million we must provide for taxation and servicing of the loan which amounts to £38 million; thus we are left with a net profit of £27 million. Those are the values standing before any increase in the costs or prices.
I gather that the right hon. Gentleman has no quarrel with those figures. But the position has entirely changed. Let me take the present position, after allowing for increased costs since August. The estimated increase in cost is at an annual rate of £75 million. Again I am quoting figures used by the right hon. Gentleman. I have to add another estimated £5 million increased cost to take care of the increase in wages already agreed and increases on the cost of living scale which apply in the industry.

Mr. Jack Jones: The sliding scale does not operate at all.

Mr. Brown: Agreements on steel wages are controlled by a cost of living agreement. There is nothing wrong with that. Both the right hon. Gentleman and I know these things perfectly well. That gives a figure of £80 million. The price increases only take care of £56 million, leaving a net figure of £24 million; so the real position is that the industry is being asked in this year to absorb out of current profits £24 million and, even if the ex-Minister is not correct in a presumption that there will be an increase above the figure of £65 million gross, or £19 million net it still will not absorb anything like £24 million, so that the industry is left with a loss of £24 million.
If one disregards the £5 million, we are back to a net figure of £19 million. Therefore we now have the position of a gross profit of £65 million. Deduct a loss, the £19 million that has got to be absorbed by the industry, leaving a figure of £46 million, from which has to be deducted loan charges and tax of £27 million, it means a net figure of £19 million against a figure accepted by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall of £25 million in August of last year. I leave it to the House; but I believe that the figures should be placed on record for they speak for themselves. There is no window dressing here. This is no sprat to catch a mackerel.
This brings me back to my argument that the industry has not been ploughing enough money back.

Mr. Jack Jones: Since when?

Mr. Brown: Since the end of the war.

Mr. Jones: Before that.

Mr. Brown: It has been accepted by every competent authority that at this time the industry requires to put on one side £60 million a year to take care of its present modernisation programme. So to £60 million we are presuming to make £19 million. That is £41 million short. It is the bounden duty of the Minister to take, as far as he can out of the current profits of the industry, as much as he can for development charges and costs.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall argues that there should have been a delay in fixing the steel prices. In almost every commodity where prices are fixed today by the Government there is too much delay in fixing of prices. The time-lag is too long. Before an industry is allowed to take up its slack it is faced with another rise, and costing systems are thrown out of gear. How in those circumstances can we hope to develop modernisation and develop it out of current profits?
The policy advocated by the Opposition will stand in the way of progress and development, and I do not believe that is their real desire. We owe it to the men in the industry to have it as efficient as possible. We owe it to the industry itself, and those industries which depend upon it, to see that we are as modern as we can be. We owe it to the

nation itself to see to it that British steel should have the capital available to develop its technical position so that we can still say in the severely competitive days ahead that British steel is the cheapest and best.
I am not sure that this is the appropriate moment to make reference to the sudden death of Sir Andrew Duncan. I will content myself, however, with saying that I doubt whether we shall see his like again, for his death will be a grievous loss to the industry and the nation.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

10.34 p.m.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: The hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Robson Brown) will always be listened to in the House because of his experience in steel matters. I was extremely interested to hear him say how much more cheaply we are producing steel in this poor, down and out country as compared with others. I have recently had a chance of seeing how some of these other countries, which are so much more efficient than ours according to so many people on the other side of the House, are doing when I visited steel works in Lorraine and in neighbouring parts last January. I did not notice that the efficiency of these particular steel works was greater than those I have seen in Scunthorpe, for instance.
We are here discussing the rise in steel prices. It is not unusual for prices to rise in these days. I make a present of it to hon. Gentleman opposite, that even in the days of the last Government it was not unknown for prices to rise. But the difference between what was happening then and what is happening now in the matter of rising prices surely is that whereas then prices were rising for reasons beyond the control of the Government in any one country, now they are rising far more often than not by the deliberate action of the present Government, at any rate so far as this country is concerned.
Although it is usual when prices do rise to see that explanations are given for these rises on the lines that costs have risen so prices must rise to compensate, it is a little surprising to find the justification for the rise in prices in this instance being that the costs of the industry are going to rise in the near future. I think that makes absolutely hollow the pretence of the present Government that they


are really wanting to keep down the cost of living.
As has already been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss), and has not been denied by the hon. Member for Esher, the profits in the steel industry last year have not only been large, but have risen enormously from what they were the year before. Surely if we wanted to keep down the cost of living in any way, as the late Government did with marked success, we should not at this time have chosen steel of all things on which to raise the price. After all, steel is basic. Is there anything we possess or use today which is not made of, or made by, steel? Almost at every moment in the lives of all of us we are dependent on something made of or by steel.
Here we are deliberately raising the price of this basic commodity and giving a most marked increase to the spiral of inflation. No reference has been made to the cost of living and its connection with wages and the steel industry. Most hon. Gentlemen know as well as I do, and no one can come from a steel constituency without knowing something of it, that wages paid to steel workers are dependent to a certain degree on the cost of living. What can be more calculated to raise the cost of living than an increase in steel prices. If these prices rise the cost of living rises, and so up go the wages and a further demand is made for an increase in the price of steel. This is a vicious circle which could, and should, have been broken by the substantial profits made in the industry being used to mop up the extra costs, thus breaking the circle instead of allowing the process to go on with increasing vigour.
It is quite evident, is it not, that the Lord President of the Council must have decided that this was to be a unique occasion on which the party opposite should attempt to fulfil one at least of its Election pledges; and the reason is obvious and plain to everybody. Why is it, having regard to these profits which have been made, that this increase in prices should have been given if not to make the industry more profitable than it is already and so to tempt investors to put money back into it?
It would not have been necessary to make that tempting offer, I suppose, if the party to which I have the honour to

belong, had not made it plain that at the first opportunity this industry, if it is denationalised, would be taken back into national ownership and control. It is because of that, that they have to make the industry look even more tempting to the private investor than it would have been by merely looking at its swollen profits.
I submit that this is a callous thing to do. It means throwing aside the interests of the country and of the thousands of people who have devoted their lives to this industry. It means throwing the industry back into the cockpit of party politics and dispute. That has undoubtedly been done by the present Government. This nationalisation was carried out as a result of the nation's verdict and now the party opposite has decided to undo the nation's work—the work done by Parliament in the name of the nation.
I submit that this Order shows a callous disregard of the nation's interests and it shows that the whole business is being undertaken at the expense of the interests of the community.

10.42 p.m.

Mr. Spencer Summers: The hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu) began his speech with a compliment to the hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Robson Brown) for the knowledge of the subject he displayed. I am sorry I cannot return the compliment to him, because it is quite evident from the speech to which we have just listened that the hon. and learned Member does not know anything about the subject. He endeavoured to argue that there was a material difference between the price increases that had taken place in recent years, which, he said, were the result of factors outside the control of this country, and the present increases which were a deliberate policy on the part of the present Government.
If the hon. and learned Member knew the facts about the industry, which is so important in his constituency, he would realise that the increases in prices till now have largely been due to the increased cost of raw materials from the nationalised coal industry and to the increased cost of transport from the nationalised transport industry. So it has been entirely within the competence of people in this country to maintain raw


material prices and render unnecessary the price increases which we have had hitherto.
I shall be dealing with the other aspect of the charge in a moment—the charge that this is a deliberate attempt by the Government to put up the cost of living. Before I do so, I want to make a few comments on the speech of the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss). If I understood him aright, his first point was that it was a great mistake to saddle consumers with an increase in the price of steel now when so much of what he called the alleged justification for it was the increased cost of importing steel from abroad which would not make itself felt until the second half of this year.
Would it not have been very much wiser, he argued, to wait till later in the year to see how matters go when it might then be found possible to make smaller increases?

Mr. G. R. Strauss: It was desirable to wait for the purpose stated by me and also to see how big the profits were in the last quarter as a result of the increases I made, because they might be very substantial indeed.

Mr. Summers: I will deal with that in a moment. I will deal first with the suggestion that it would be wiser to wait and deal with the increased bill for the imported steel till later on, when it was known to be coming in. It is known that the increased cost falling on Britain on account of importing steel will be very large. It is a remarkable reflection on this whole Order that 70 per cent. of the increase in the price of steel is accountable to the expense of bringing in expensive steel from abroad compared with the cheap steel we have been making in this country.
It may well be that we can assess the cost of bringing in American steel, but everything points to the fact that the local price in America will be higher later this year than was the case when the arrangements were made by the Prime Minister at the end of last year. So there is nothing to be gained by waiting, and if we did wait there would be a much larger increase necessary then, because it would be spread over a much shorter time. It is surely wiser to have a more even flow of price changes by spreading the additional burden on account of imports over a much longer period.
The right hon. Member for Vauxhall referred to the so-called exorbitant profits of some £63 million which, he, said, was made last year. If he will refer to the statement of the Minister on the subject, when cross-examined on 25th February, he will find that said:
As regards the profit of the industry, the figures—which, I would inform the House, only reached me in their final form on Friday—amount to £63 million, or rather are at the rate … Some of those figures are based only on a six-months' period."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th February, 1952; Vol. 496, c. 712.]
So that it is not a correct interpretation of the Minister's information to say the profits for the past year were in fact £63 million.
In dealing with this matter of whether the industry is making such large profits that they ought to be capable of taking care of the increased costs that are known to be falling upon them, two facts have not been referred to this evening, and they are relevant to a fair consideration of the matter. The first is the effect on the stocks held by all industry, and the steel industry, of course, as well, of the increase in prices due to general inflation in this country. Because as the price goes up, so there must necessarily come about a windfall addition to the resources of firms because of the increased value of the stocks in their possession. It would be quite wrong to say that the windfall should be used to keep prices of steel down, because when these stocks are used up they have to be replaced with fresh stocks at the same, if not higher, prices.
Secondly, a very large part of the profit in recent times—and here I bear in mind the examples which the right hon. Gentleman read to the House—have come from the premiums obtained in the export market. There are some who would argue that at least part of these export premiums should be taken into account when the price of British steel in the home market is considered. It is not for hon. Gentlemen opposite to argue in that way when it was, in fact, their policy to leave out of account all premiums derived from the export market in fixing prices on the home market. It is on these two accounts that a very large part of the profits, described, quite falsely in my view, as exorbitant, are derived.
The right hon. Gentleman said, so clever had his Government been in keeping


the price of steel down in this country by controls, that it compared very favourably with the price of steel in other countries. I have heard hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite make some extravagant claims for the conduct of their Government when in office, but to take the credit for keeping down the cost of manufacture in the steel trade is really quite extravagant and unwarranted. The costs in the steel trade, so far as they have not been driven up by the cost of raw materials from the nationalised industries, have been kept down by the ingenuity of the men working in that trade.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: The hon. Member should not forget that for a long time the Government subsidised scrap from abroad. Was not that subsidy reflected in the price of finished steel?

Mr. Summers: What happened about this alleged subsidy of which other hon. Members than the hon. Gentleman speak, is that the industry was supposed to have been given something by the taxpayer rather than by the consumer of steel. The taxpayer, rather than the consumer, paid the excess costs of transport of foreign ore into this country. [HON. MEMBERS: "That is a subsidy."] When hon. Members opposite talk about subsidies in this case, they quite overlook the fact that this was an additional charge made outside the country, just in the same way as the consumer had to pay more for British steel when he needed more steel than could be made in this country from the materials available; because of the expensive imported steel which had to be brought in. We really should preserve a sense of proportion in this business and realise that of the increased prices recently announced, 70 per cent. is, in fact, due to the cost of bringing steel from abroad, and only the remaining 30 per cent. is due to increased costs which the industry here has had to shoulder.
This charge made against the Government, that there is no need for prices to be put up, might have some justification if the entire increase in costs was to be made good by an increase in price and was to be charged solely to the consumer. But, no such suggestion is made. Of the increased costs which the industry is to shoulder, 25 per cent. has to be found from the resources and increased efficiency of the industry itself. That is a

very different thing from placing on the consumer the whole of the increase with which the industry is faced.
The only other point I would mention is referring to the need for the accumulation of reserves by the industry for the purpose of taking care of the very heavy capital costs for modernising and maintaining the plant in the industry. The original plan in 1945, approved by the late Government, was to cost £168 millions, and it was to make 16 million tons in 1952. In passing, I cannot help but say how inconsistent is the membership of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) of a Government approving that scheme, with his saying that the steel masters had lacked foresight in preparing and producing adequately for our needs.

Mr. A. C. Manuel: Is the point which the hon. Member is making that adequate amounts ought to be placed to reserve to re-equip the industry? Would he agree, I wonder, to support a proposition laying down exactly the amount of profit which should go to reserve, not having it fully distributed?

Mr. Summers: It would be a great mistake if the Government of this country, whatever its colour, sought to interfere with the proper discharge of the responsibilities of industry in the way which the hon. Gentleman suggests.
What I was leading up to was the statement that the original plan which was to have cost £168 million has cost some £250 million. Even so, the rate at which capital has to be spent within the industry to cover the need to maintain itself and keep modern, is at least £50 million to £60 million a year. Indeed, it may well be more. It is well known that the accumulation of capital in recent years, and especially the obtaining of risk capital, has been gravely prejudiced by a variety of factors which have been at work in recent times.
That being so, it is all the more important that when prices are established there should be an adequate margin over cost—as indeed was admitted in the first proposition of the right hon. Member for Vauxhall—for the creation of resources to maintain and modernise plant. When regard is paid to the amount of increased cost which is not to come out of the consumer, and when regard is paid to the


amount of the burden on account of imported steel and the need to replenish resources for capital purposes, there is every justification for the increase announced by the Minister recently.

10.57 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Edelman: The hon. Gentleman the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Summers), with his colleagues, has just been arguing in favour of a rise in the cost of living. That, certainly, is what the argument of hon. Gentlemen opposite means. There is no doubt that the Cabinet decision to increase the price of steel—for it was a Cabinet decision, as has been stated by the Minister of Supply—will hit hard every man, woman and child in this country.
Indeed, when the hon. Gentleman the Member for Esher (Mr. Robson Brown) was arguing that the price of steel has been kept too low, I could not help wishing that he had advanced that argument six months ago. Six months ago the print was not yet dry on the Tory posters saying that the Conservative Party would keep down the cost of living. Now a new proposition is advanced. It is that the Government, by wilfully advancing the price of a basic material, are, in some way or other, conferring a benefit on the community.
One fact is absolutely clear, and that is that this increase in the price of iron and steel will be inflationary. It will have repercussions not only on everything in domestic use, but also in those goods produced for the export market. I know, as a Member for a constituency which makes the cars referred to by the former Minister of Supply, that it is certain that every car, which consumes approximately one ton of steel, will be handicapped by that amount which the Government are adding as an extra charge to the price of steel.
At this dangerous time, when we are facing so many difficulties in the export market, it is certain that the advance in the price of steel imposed by the Government will be a ball and chain on our exports. It was suggested by the hon. Member for Esher that the price of British steel was still extremely low compared with the price of steel abroad. But that is not strictly true today. For example, the price of small steel bars in this country is now £49 11s. 6d. per ton

f.o.b., whereas the French quotation is £47 3s. 0d., the Belgian figure is £48 4s. 0d., and even the Japanese figure is £46 8s. 0d. f.o.b. So that even in the case of a commodity which is of the greatest importance to our engineering industry, the effect of the increase by the right hon. Gentleman has been to handicap our manufacturers and to place disabilities upon our exporters.

Mr. Robson Brown: Will the hon. Member give us the source of those figures?

Mr. Edelman: The source is the "Birmingham Post," a newspaper which certainly is not known for Socialist sympathies, and which I am sure would be completely objective in this matter.

Mr. Brown: And the date?

Mr. Edelman: The date is a recent one—7th March: the House can rely upon the figures.
But I am not concerned merely with the day-to-day quotation of a particular type of steel. What I am concerned about is the whole market trend of the iron and steel industry. Looking at that trend, we see that, so far from the price of world steel continuing to rise, there is already a perceptible tendency for the price to fall. The most sensitive index is the Belgian international steel market. There we see that the price is falling.
The reason the price is still falling in the world markets is because the decision of the United States to add so much to its own production is bringing the production of world steel and American demands more or less into balance. The effect of that is to produce a decline in the world price of steel. Since Korea, the increase in the annual production of American steel has been of the order of 8,000,000 tons, and by 1953 it is anticipated that there will be a further 12,000,000 tons increase in American annual steel production.
This increase in production does not come from nothing. To a great extent this increase is at the expense of our own production. Much of the steel and the ore which we hope to get as a result of the agreement made by the Prime Minister in America derives from sources which, traditionally, should have belonged to us. It has merely gone for a joy-ride round the world to America,


whence it is being returned to us after profits have been made by various middlemen on the way.
With the increases proposed by the Minister of Supply, the iron and steel industry will be seriously handicapped in facing future problems which already stand out clearly when one analyses the market trend. If I can have the attention of the Minister for a moment I shall turn to the right hon. Gentleman's dispute with the Iron and Steel Corporation. I emphasise this matter of the Iron and Steel Corporation because I want to deal specifically with the expressions of Mr. Steven Hardie on behalf of the Corporation.
The right hon. Gentleman has stated at various times in the House that he was never in dispute with the Corporation on the matter of iron and steel prices, but that it was Mr. Hardie who had this disagreement. After he had made that statement, several hon. Members on this side of the House invited the right hon. Gentleman to publish the letter of 24th January, which Mr. Hardie referred to, in which he said that, on behalf of the Corporation, he had informed the Minister that the Corporation was opposed to any increase of iron and steel prices.
When he was invited to answer that question the right hon. Gentleman replied, and I should like to quote an extract from that reply. The right hon. Gentleman said, on 10th March:
… I can tell the House that the purpose of Mr. Hardie's letter of 24th January was to place on record certain arguments advanced by him in the course of a meeting on 23rd January between himself, the Deputy-Chairman of the Corporation, myself, the Parliamentary Secretary and senior officials of the Ministry of Supply, at the conclusion of which a schedule of increased steel prices had been agreed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1952; Vol. 497, c. 992.]
I stress those last words.
I would not wish for a moment to promote the Corporation as a constitutional body above the Minister himself. The function of the Corporation is merely to give technical advice. But this was a technical matter and an economic question and, consequently, the advice given by Mr. Hardie was technical and economic, and Mr. Hardie would have been failing in his duty had he not given his honest advice as to what was best to be

done in connection with iron and steel prices. He did so, according to his statement in his letter to the Minister on 24th January; but the Minister says that Mr. Hardie gave him a flat refutation of the statement that he had agreed to a schedule of increased new prices.
Several of my hon. Friends invited the Minister to publish that letter. The right hon. Gentleman hedged for a time and finally, in a minatory tone, said words to the effect that if my hon. Friends insisted on his publishing the letter they would probably get more than they had bargained for. That kind of pressure may be all right when applied to certain members of the Corporation, but I am certain that my hon. Friends will not yield to pressure of that kind by the right hon. Gentleman. I invite him now to say whether he is prepared to publish Mr. Hardie's letter of 24th January in which Mr. Hardie, on behalf of the Corporation, said he was opposed to an increase in prices.

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. Edelman: The right hon. Gentleman does not rise so I conclude, and all my hon. and right hon. Friends will conclude, that the right hon. Gentleman's refusal to do so means that it is not the veracity of Mr. Hardie that is impugned but the accuracy of the right hon. Gentleman in his dispute with Mr. Hardie.
This is not a matter of personalities. As I have said in previous debates, I have never met Mr. Hardie. I have had no communication with him and to the best of my knowledge I do not know what he looks like. I judge him by his record of public service, by the stand he took in this matter of iron and steel prices; because for the very first time we had a most dramatic confrontation of a public servant, the head of a nationalised industry taking his stand on the very principle we on this side of the House have always advanced as being the purpose and end of nationalisation, namely, to serve the public interest and to resist the demands of private profit when those demands are put in a way which would be detrimental to the public as a whole.
The result of this struggle was when it became clear that Mr. Hardie would only be persona grata with the Minister if he agreed to raise prices and, of course, then it was honourable and proper for


him to resign. That is the course he took. The Minister, on behalf of the Government, invited Mr. Hardie first to dig his own grave before they shot him. Mr. Hardie very properly refused that invitation. The result is that the nation as a whole is now in a situation in which this conflict will proceed. On one side there are those who support Mr. Hardie's stand in the interests of the public, and on the other the right hon. Gentleman and the Cabinet behind him, and those associated with him who have been engaged in window dressing—for that is all that it is—of the assets of the Iron and Steel Corporation.

Air Commodore A. V. Harvey: Does the hon. Gentleman not consider it unfortunate that the British Oxygen Company did not follow the line that he has just described, from the point of view of record profits?

Mr. Edelman: I am not concerned with the British Oxygen Company. I am concerned with Mr. Hardie, and I am judging him by what he has done in this matter. I say that Mr. Hardie deserves well of the country.
I wish to conclude on this note. This argument will certainly continue, and I know that those who listen to this debate or read the report of it will know which is the party which is in favour of a rise in the cost of living and which is the party which is opposed to it. I am sure that the country will realise that this is an issue in which the two attitudes represented by the Government and the Opposition become clear.
My right hon. Friend has already quoted that very revealing leading article in the "Financial Times," which really lets the cat out of the bag. I would quote a few words from that leading article to reinforce his argument. They are:
The increased profitability of the industry will, at any rate, tend to ease the task of the present Government in seeking a solution of the difficult problem of returning the steel industry to private ownership.
There we have the whole aim and purpose of the right hon. Gentleman and those connected with him. He has not been governed by economic considerations. He has not been governed by any respect for the consumer or the exporter. He has not been concerned even with those industrialists who are connected

with the consuming industries which depend on steel. He has merely been concerned with this single potential point of dressing up the iron and steel industry so that ultimately, when he offers it through the Stock Exchange to private enterprise, he will find ready buyers.
Whatever the near future may bring, whether the right hon. Gentleman is successful or not in steam-rolling a Measure of denationalisation through this Parliament, the day will certainly come when the public will realise that the nationalised iron and steel industry did well for the country; and when the Opposition becomes the Government of the country they will certainly take action to see that the iron and steel industry, through nationalisation, serves the country once again.

11.13 p.m.

Mr. Baker White: I do not propose to follow the hon. Member for Coventry, North (Mr. Edelman) because I want to get back to what we are supposed to be discussing tonight, namely, the Iron and Steel Prices Order.
I would only follow the hon. Member on one point. I should like him to inquire into the "Birmingham Post" figures of comparative prices which he quoted. I have not the prices for small rods, but the prices which I have do not tell the same story at all. They show, after the price increase: Great Britain, £27 19s. 6d. a ton; U.S.A., £35 4s.; France, £36 0s. 5d., Germany, £31 19s. 7d.; and Belgium, £31 8s. 11d.
I do not represent an industry which produces steel, nor have I any connection with that industry. I am concerned with a constituency which is a very large consumer of steel in the form of agricultural machinery, mining machinery, pit props, housing, coast defence and tin plate. It is from that aspect that I try to look at these figures and at the reason why these price increases have been made.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) suggested that steel prices had been kept down, since the war, by control. My belief is that what kept prices down was the high efficiency of the industry and the very high standard of co-operation of everybody in it. I think it is a great pity that hon. Members opposite and the right hon. Gentleman who moved this Prayer


did not probe a little more deeply into the background of these rises in price and into the rise in cost that preceded them.
After all, the prices of foreign ore rose from 60s. to 90s. a ton in the first six months of 1951. Imported pig iron rose by £11 a ton in 1951; imported scrap rose by over £20 a ton, and I think it is worth remembering that the industry carried for that time, without any increase in prices, the extra cost which resulted from the August price increase in scrap. The industry also had wage increases which were very well earned. They put £8½ million on to the industry's costs in 1951.
With regard to the costs outside the control of the industry, on 16th April last year there was an increase of 10 per cent. in railway freight, canal and dock charges.

Mr. Percy Daines: Would the hon. Gentleman read the last part of his speech carefully, so that we can all hear it?

Mr. Baker White: There was a further increase in these charges of 10 per cent. on 31st December, 1951. I am not lecturing hon. Members on the relation of the cost of coal to the cost of steel. They know as much as I do about that. But if we take 1938 as 100, the price of coal was 247. In January, 1951, it was 251 and in January, 1952, it was 297, that is to say, 46 points up last year. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Summers) mentioned specifically the great incidence on the price increase of the increase in the price of imported steel. I think it is rather surprising that the present increases have not been larger.
With regard to the question of comparative prices abroad, I do not want to bore the House with a whole set of figures, but I am prepared to produce them to any hon. Member who doubts what I am going to say. Even with these price increases, almost every single category of iron and steel produced in this country is substantially lower, still, than the prices in other countries. The right hon. Member for Vauxhall mentioned the profits of the industry. I do wish he would look at the figures of the profits of that hard-bitten monopoly the British Oxygen Company, built up by Mr. Hardie. That company has made

record profits for the past three years. It has paid a 20 per cent. dividend and the iron and steel industry is by far the largest user of its products.

Mr. Jack Jones: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that if Steven Hardie wished, he and his company could have made the cost of steel still higher than it is at the moment—and increased the profits—if he followed Tory policy?

Mr. Baker White: The British Oxygen Company made over £4 million on a capital of £6 million. I do not know what hon. Gentlemen opposite think of that. It is perfectly clear that this Prayer has been moved entirely for political reasons and for party propaganda purposes.

11.20 p.m.

Mr. George Chetwynd: The speeches we have heard so far from both sides clearly reveal the fundamental difference of approach between the two parties. From the other side we have had nothing but a balance-sheet approach, a profit-and-loss approach, a justification of the Government's Order, in the interests of those whom they hope will soon be shareholders again. We on this side have been looking at it from the wider aspect of the real national interest—and we do this clearly because a nationalised industry is and must be an instrument of national policy—whereas the Government alternative is that it should once again be in the hands of private enterprise as the instrument of private profit.
The clear intention of the Government, as declared at the last Election, was to do something to reduce the cost of living, and one would have thought when Mr. Hardie gave them this first-class opportunity of doing something about it that they would have grasped it with both hands. But, instead, they fell over themselves to get rid of the chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation and go contrary to his advice and put into operation price increases which, through their many accumulative effects on everything else, are bound to increase the cost of living considerably.

Mr. Summers: Is it right, then, to put up the price of coal when the cost requires it, notwithstanding its effect on the cost of living, but wrong to do the self-same thing in the case of steel?

Mr. Chetwynd: No. The two things are interlocked, and the price increase in iron and steel is bound to have an accumulative effect on the price of coal, while if we had adopted the Hardie policy it would have resulted in a lower price of coal.

Mr. Summers: The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood my point. Does he draw a distinction between increasing the price of coal when the costs require an increase, notwithstanding its effect on the cost of living and criticising the self-same thing in steel?

Mr. Chetwynd: No, I shall deal with that point later. We have to take this increase in steel in conjunction with the Government's policy and promises that they were going to do something to reduce the cost of living. We now see that everything from a battleship to a bicycle clip is affected by this increase. We should remember, in judging the national interest, that under the Act the Iron and Steel Corporation did not necessarily have to show a profit every year, but was supposed to be in general balance taking one year with another. Therefore, if the national interest warranted it, there is no reason this year why it should not operate at a loss.
We also have to judge this decision against the whole world background of steel production and prices. It has become more and more evident that production throughout the world is at such a state that demand and supply are becoming nearer and nearer. Whereas we at home are completely dependent for survival on our exports—and we need an extra 315,000 tons of ingot steel to meet export commitments this year—we have to concentrate on the metal using industries to get the necessary volume of exports.
It is again clear that rising prices of iron and steel will make it more and more difficult for manufacturing industries to compete in overseas markets, in particular in the United States. The gap has been narrowed between British steel prices and those of Western Europe and America. I am going to quote the same figures as the hon. Gentleman did when he was seeking to prove that our level of prices were so much below those of other countries that our exporting trades

were not jeopardised. The exact opposite is true. For angles, our current price is £27 19s. 6d. In the U.S. it is £35 4s. and in the Western Zone of Germany it is £31 19s. 7d. The American price is 26 per cent. higher than ours.
When we look at sheets, which are vitally important in our exports, we find the current prices at home are £40 2s. 6d., the American prices are £40 16s., just 2 per cent. higher than ours, and the prices in Western Germany are £44 2s. 1d., or 10 per cent. higher. If we look at rails the current price here is £28 12s. 6d., in the United States £30 12s.—or 7 per cent. higher—and in Western Germany £29 8s. 5d., only 3 per cent. higher. If we realise, on the one hand, that the more efficient methods of production in the United States and in Western Germany lower wages will cheapen their cost of production of the finished article, it is clear that we cannot compete in our export prices with prices as they are in American production or Western German production. When we have to fight tooth and nail to sell our engineering products overseas, it seems clear that this increase is placing an unnecessary burden on the exporting industry.

Mr. Summers: I only want the hon. Gentleman to bear in mind, if he is comparing export prices of sheets, that the ruling prices at home and in America and most other countries have no relation whatever to the prices ruling in the export market.

Mr. Chetwynd: I have merely quoted figures provided by the British Iron and Steel Federation, but I think my general point holds, and if we are competing on level terms, either with Germany or the United States where they have more efficient production, or in the case of Germany where they have lower production costs it seems we are at a grave disadvantage.
Furthermore, we have to consider that world production of steel increased by, I think it was, 20 million tons, and it looks as if it will increase by another 15 million tons this year. As the American steel shortage is overcome, they will not be wanting products of our engineering industry unless we can offer them at cheaper rates compared with their own. If we are to maintain our exports we


have to get the basic element in the manufacturing industry, on which we depend, as cheap as possible.
The effect of the increase price on rearmament, for which we need an extra 300,000 tons of ingot steel for defence, will be that there will be an increase in costs to the Exchequer, and because of the ceilings imposed on the social services that is bound to react adversely on those services. Although we have agreed that we shall have to have guns and a certain amount of butter, I am not sure the public will take kindly to a situation where not only will we have less butter but only the same amount of guns at a dearer price. It will be so unless we can transfer that part of the steel price increase which is attributable to rearmament to the Ministry of Defence Estimates and subsidise them in that way.
So far as the principle of subsidy is concerned, it is accepted by the Government, who are still paying the duty on imported steel. The transference, I suggest, is defence estimates of increased armament prices is only an expansion of the principle. My right hon. Friend gave some good figures of the profits being made in the steel industry today, and I should like to ask the Minister to give us a more detailed account of the way prices have been fixed in this particular case. If he refers to "The Times" of 25th February he will see this statement:
No doubt the difficulties involved in fixing steel prices ought to be more openly discussed.
That is what we are doing now.
More than once since the war the principles applied in fixing these prices have been reviewed, but never publicly. Yet these are not affairs that should be arranged between a Minister and an industry.
I think that is perfectly true. One of things we have to ask tonight in discussing these large increases is that the public should have greater knowledge of the basis upon which they have been arranged. We should know what is the breakdown in the increase since August, 1951, due to increased coal, coke, wages and transport costs and how much of the increase is due to the import of finished steel from the U.S.A., which has to be met by the increased levy on home-produced ingots.
If we turn to this question of scrap and steel from the U.S.A., it seems a

ridiculous way of arranging our economic life, to get things from the U.S.A.—either finished steel or scrap—which have been sent there from Western Germany at an increased price when we ought to have got these raw materials and scrap direct from Western Germany and so kept prices down and maintained our own home industry in full production.
One other thing we must ask in this: Would it not have been better at this stage to have pressed the U.S.A. to make smaller demands upon the scrap and ore available in Western Europe and allow us to get an increased quantity at lower prices and, therefore, keep our own production costs down? What we have to ask, too, is how far can the expected profits of this industry meet the increase? I think it is clear from the quotation from the "Financial Times" what high profits have been made. The steel firms could not do otherwise at a time of rearmament. The Minister should tell us how far we can rely on increased efficiency of production and better organisation of the industry to make part of this increase unnecessary.
I can only assume, as my right hon. Friend has, that this scheme of the Government to increase prices bears no relation to their Election promises to keep costs down or to the real national interest. It is done only to make the steel companies more profitable to the potential purchasers when the industry is denationalised. The Government have not made out their case for these substantial increases and I hope that the Prayer will be carried tonight.

11.33 p.m.

Mr. Peter Roberts: I have listened very carefully to the arguments put forward by hon. Members opposite and I really think that my right hon. Friend will have an easy task in winding up this debate.
There have been four main arguments put forward from the other side. The first, which was produced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss), was that these prices were harmful and that they would increase the prices of other products. That I agree: we must, on both sides, accept it as regrettable that these prices have to go up—but that is not an argument in itself. We have the argument


that the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) has produced—that this should not be put on the consumers but on the taxpayers. There may be something in that argument, though it does not get away from the reason why these prices must be imposed, whether on the consumer or the taxpayer.
Third, there was the argument of the hon. Member for Coventry, West (Mr. Edelman), that the Minister should have followed the advice of Mr. Hardie. I could not help recalling, during his speech, what his views were upon the other members of the Board who did not give that advice and I think he was a little unkind to those who remained behind when he suggested that they were not performing their national duty by not resigning as well.

Mr. Edelman: My argument was not that the Minister should have followed Mr. Hardie's advice, but that the Minister should have followed the advice of the Corporation, tendered through Mr. Hardie in the letter of 24th January, which, for some reason of his own, the Minister has been keeping secret.

Mr. Roberts: But, unfortunately, that advice was not in the end unanimous advice, and if he does not wish to cast a slur upon those who remain behind, I am glad that the hon. Member has now said so.
The fourth argument is one of political motive, dealing with the question of profits, and I think that argument was most ably dealt with by my hon. Friend who spoke first from this side of the House. Those hon. Members on the other side who listened to him must have been convinced by the figures in themselves that the profits which have been absorbed have to be reduced by something like £24 million. On those figures, the profits this year will be less than the profit which was allowed by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall during the Socialist regime. We have had no argument or answer to that question, and until we have, I think hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot believe that they have made out their case.
Now I come to the question of why these prices have had to be increased. [An HON. MEMBER: "At last.") I was suggesting as long ago as 5th February, 1951, that this would have to happen.

They were increased eventually by £60 million. We did not then hear to the same extent those arguments which have been produced tonight by hon. Members on that side of the House, that the prices would have to go throughout all industry and would be reflected in the engineering industry—the argument they produce tonight.

Mr. Frederick Mulley: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that when an increase has been put on prices, every further increase makes the problem much more serious, whether it is steel or anything else?

Mr. Roberts: I quite agree. Let us see what happened after August of last year. The hon. Member comes from Sheffield, and he knows the colliery areas round about; the Coal Board has imposed in the last few months one of the biggest increases in the prices of coal which have been made during the last two years. Does the hon. Gentleman also know that from coal comes coke, and that the price of coke has been increased in the last two months by as much as 10s. to 17s. per ton? All this came upon the steel makers. If this argument is to be followed out, hon. Gentlemen on that side have to say that they blame nationalisation for that. I do not think they will argue that, or that they should not have increased miners' wages, which is reflected in these increases.

Mr. Fernyhough: What would the hon. Gentleman and the rest of the hon. Members sitting on those benches have said if the Coal Board had been showing a profit as large as the Iron and Steel Corporation, and had still increased the price of coal?

Mr. Roberts: That does not further the argument at all.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: The argument that has been advanced from this side of the House is that these increases in cost might have been met out of the enormous profits of the industry.

Mr. Roberts: I dealt with that point when I referred the hon. Gentleman to the speech of my hon. Friend who answered that point by saying that the estimated profits for this year will be, or are to be, less than they were during the year when the right hon. Member for


Vauxhall was in charge. Hon. Gentlemen must try to find an answer to that argument. They have not done so up to date.
I want to return to the point I was making before I was interrupted. If hon. Members on that side are going to attack these figures, they have to attack them at their source, which was the increase in miners' wages and the increase in the transport workers' wages, because this is reflected from them.
The second point is that in Sheffield the price of industrial gas has gone up as a direct result of the increase in the price of coal. We on this side of the House have, year after year, pointed out that with nationalisation one is bound to get these increases in price. It is, in fact, merely another example of what, I venture to say, is the coming home to roost of a trouble based on policies that right hon. and hon. Members opposite have put forward with regard to nationalisation.

Mr. R. H. S. Crossman: If the hon. Member thinks that nationalisation is the chief cause of the increase in steel prices, can he tell the House why, in the United States, steel prices are much higher than here?

Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman must refer his question to the Coal Board, which is consistently putting up the price of coal.
The next question to which I refer is that of scrap. Hon. Members know that the scrap agreement of last September was the responsibility of the late Government; and an hon. Member opposite talked of scrap going to America and coming back. I wish that when we attacked that agreement from that side of the House hon. Members now sitting there had supported us. We reduced our scrap intake from Germany, and America, as a partner, took her share; the whole question is bound up directly with the late Government.
If there were time I would raise the question of iron ore because, for years, we, sitting over there, pressed for iron ore imports to be increased from Sierra Leone, among other places. Again and again hon. Members opposite took no

action, and here we are, faced with a shortage of iron ore; a shortage which they could have remedied by proper action.
Of the four arguments which right hon. and hon. Members opposite have raised, not one is a valid or proper reason; and, therefore, I am quite certain that when my right hon. Friend comes to reply he will be able to assure the House that the Prayer ought not to have been prayed against—

Mr. M. Follick: How does one pray against a Prayer?

Mr. Roberts: That this Order ought not to have been prayed against. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members opposite will agree not to press the issue to a Division.

11.43 p.m.

Mr. Jack Jones: This debate ought not to be allowed to pass without a reference to the lamented passing of our good friend, Sir Andrew Duncan and, on behalf of the steel workers of Britain, I would wish to submit our sincere sympathy to his family in their bereavement. He was an able administrator, a man with a fine brain, and, when it came to making a settlement for or against the steel workers, he was always fair.
So far as the speech to which we have just listened is concerned, I can only say that I am amazed. Here is the hon. Member for Heeley (Mr. P. Roberts), claiming to represent the steel workers, and getting up quite nakedly—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—well, metaphorically, quite nakedly, and unashamedly, to suggest that the best interests of the many thousands of steel workers in Sheffield will best be served by watching the price of steel rise yet again without saying a word against it.
I was in Sheffield as recently as last Saturday night, on business for my trade union, and I found very grave concern about unemployment, and under-employment, particularly in the lighter industries of which, apparently, the hon. Member knows nothing; but about which he should know quite a lot. To suggest that to allow prices to rise willy-nilly, to say, "The sky's the limit," is not what the steel workers are saying.

Mr. P. Roberts: I said nothing like it. What I did say was that this increase had had to be made.

Mr. Jones: I said that the hon. Member suggested that. I did not say that he used those words.

Mr. Roberts: I said the opposite.

Mr. Jones: The hon. Member suggested that this was the correct thing to do. We shall see when we go into the Lobbies whether he supports the rise in prices or whether he is against the increase. That will be the test.
I am not so much concerned with who is right. I am not so much concerned with whether Steven Hardie, Keir Hardie or any other Hardie is right. I am concerned with what is the correct price to charge for British steel in present circumstances. A lot has been said about the effect of these increases. The agricultural industry will be affected. Every exporting community in this island will be affected. The houses to be built to attract men to the mining industry will be affected. The rents to be charged for those houses will be increased, because the houses are to be erected with steel supports as a result of the danger of subsidence caused by the neglect of hon. Gentlemen opposite who took the guts out of the ground. Everything will be affected.
I am convinced that this question is not so much economic as political. When the former Minister of Supply was in office, there was an increase in prices. That was because of the increase in the cost of coal. The Government should get it into their heads that there will be no cheap miners in future. The days have gone when hon. Gentlemen opposite can tell us that we have so much coal that we do not know what to do with it. The days of the pittance to the miner working under terrible conditions have gone.
That has had a serious effect on the steel industry. But, because of their lack of knowledge, no hon. Members opposite say anything about the decreased amount of coal which is being used. If the same amount of coal per ton of steel is used in the industry today as was used five, 10 or 20 years ago, that is a complete indictment of the efficiency of the industry.
It is completely wrong to suggest that the cost of coal per ton of steel is the same today as it used to be. I entirely

agree with the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) that more millions of tons of coal have been wasted in this country—hundreds of thousands of tons of it in the steel industry—than anywhere else in the world. The amount of coal used per ton of steel when I was making steel—and that is not so very long ago was 50 cwt. today, it is much less—

Mr. Robson Brown: I should like the hon. Member, whose views on steel I respect very highly, to note that in the increased charges this year we shall have to provide £8 million for the increased cost of coal and coke.

Mr. Jones: That is admitted. The cost of coal has increased, and everybody knows why. If there is no virtue at all in nationalisation, if nationalisation is a complete mess, what I cannot understand is why the Government do not go ahead and de-nationalise the coal industry. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that coal is successfully nationalised and that steel will be unsuccessful if it remains nationalised.
Let us make no bones about it. The facts are that this is the one moneyspinner of the industries left in this country, and the Government intend to take it back into private ownership. That is the reason why the prices have been increased. I do not say that that is the sole reason. I believe that there probably have been reasons for small increases.
Who will get the benefit of the increased prices? The steel workers will not. I want to put it on record that at the beginning of the last war the steel workers voluntarily "froze" their wages. They took 66½ on base rates. Today, if the steel workers were paid on a sliding scale, they would be receiving something like 100 per cent. more than they are doing in their wage packets. During the war those men also took a cost of living bonus which gave the labourer the same amount, additional to his basic wage, as the highest paid worker in the industry. The steel worker is not getting any benefit from these increased prices.
There are lots of other things which could be done rather than increase the price. The aim ought to be to keep prices down. Today, the industry is paying an enormous amount of money to non-producers. If I had the time I could prove


that administrative costs alone since the war have gone up 30s. a ton in certain of our steel works. But, besides time, to prove this would involve mentioning personalities and firms.
I could prove also that on the managerial side there are three, four, even five times as many people as before the war, drawing wages of £700 to £750. That is where the industry ought to look. [An HON. MEMBER: "Has that been going on under nationalisation?"] Yes, during the brief history of nationalisation. Certain people were removed, and careful stock was being taken. But for the standstill order of the present Government, these things would have been seen to.
There is no doubt that the Tory Government are in a dilemma. They have to try to keep two promises, one of which they must break. One of those promises is to bring down the cost of living. The other is to de-nationalise this industry. They cannot do both. They cannot de-nationalise the industry because those who hope that it will be returned to them must see a better return for their money before they are ready to invest in it. Therefore, the cost of living must go up. The Government's promise to bring down the cost of living has already been shattered.
As for de-nationalisation, we shall wait and see. My forecast is that de-nationalisation will operate on the sugar and plums of the industry, and not on the whole of the industry which we nationalised. We shall wait a few more weary weeks before we find out what is to come about. My advice to the Government is to seek to do the right thing so far as prices are concerned. The American steel bargain was the worst thing in the Government's history. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Summers), who has knowledge of the steel industry, admitted that 70 per cent. of the increased price is due to having to equate throughout the whole of our cost of production the cost of the American-bought steel. [An HON. MEMBER: "A bad bargain."] It is a terribly bad bargain for Sheffield steel workers. Two hundred thousand tons of these million tons are coming in the form of semi-finished and finished steel at terrifically high prices.
I submit that if we had used one-tenth or a quarter part of the tin and aluminium we have allowed to go at below world prices and had spent fewer dollars and had obtained raw materials instead of finished articles, Sheffield workers would be now on full time instead of working only four days a week. In addition, we would be getting the conversion value of that material by sending it out in the form of cars and motorcycles and other engineering products. That was a bad bargain. The Americans have completely had the best of it.
Scrap has gone from Germany, Spain, and Sweden. Whoever is responsible is wrong. I am not concerned with pointing a finger to this or that side of the House. I am concerned with facts. The Prime Minister, the chief commercial traveller, who was against bulk buying if the Tory manifesto is to be believed, bought millions of pounds worth of steel and made the worst possible bargain from the point of view of British steel-workers. It would have been far better if dollars had been obtained for tin and aluminium, materials of high strategic value we have in this country, and a much better bargain driven for them. But that is past history.
I appeal to Her Majesty's Government to look again at these prices. They can do no other than retard our industry, increase the cost of building and even put up the rents of council houses. These increased prices will reflect themselves in an increased cost of living. An increased cost of living will reflect itself in a discontented community, and a discontented community will not produce the exports upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer depends for the operation of his Budget. These things are like a boomerang which comes back and hits hard. They will be further nails in the coffin of this Conservative Government which will be buried sooner or later, and heaven provide that it be sooner.

11.59 p.m.

The Minister of Supply (Mr. Duncan Sandys): First of all, I should like to associate myself with the tribute paid by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones) and by one or two other speakers earlier in the debate to the late Sir Andrew Duncan. He was my chief at the Ministry of Supply during the war and I know well from personal contact


how much he contributed to the common victory during those years. He was a respected and loved Member of this House and, as has just been said, he was universally regarded as a fair man. We mourn his loss.
I turn now to the subject of this debate. It is well known that in political life there are many surprises, but I must say I never thought that I should find myself defending a nationalised industry against an attempt by the Socialist Party to raid its profits in the interest of other industries under private enterprise.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss), who opened the debate, made four main criticisms with which I shall attempt to deal. He said there was no good reason for these price increases. In the second place, he said they would have a bad effect upon our economy. Third, he said that our motive in making these price increases was purely political. Last, and turning, in particular, to me, he said that I had not been—these were his words—quite honest with the House about my consultations with Mr. Hardie and the Iron and Steel Corporation.
Before dealing with the first three general criticisms, I would like to say a word about my consultations with the Corporation. Several hon. Members have raised this issue. I have already explained on an earlier occasion why I consider it unwise and improper to set a precedent for the publication of confidential correspondence between the Government and the board of a nationalised industry. When I made that explanation I noticed how many right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite nodded their heads in approval. I believe it would be an unfortunate precedent, and one only to be resorted to in the most extreme and exceptional case, to publish correspondence of this nature.

Mr. Edelman: May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, as this is a point which I raised'? Does the right hon. Gentleman consider it proper to impugn the honour of a gentleman and then not to put the facts on record for public scrutiny? Surely this is precisely the type of exceptional case to which he has referred as being a proper subject for the publication of the correspondence concerned.

Mr. Sandys: As the hon. Member knows well, I have impugned nobody's honour. All that I have done is to reply with considerable restraint to accusations made against me, and not least by the hon. Member himself. I think that the publication of this kind of correspondence can only have the effect of impairing the free and frank discussion and exchange of views which must take place between a Government and the board of a nationalised industry.
I am quite prepared, if I am pressed, to give to the House tonight, in detail, a chronological account of my consultations with the Corporation. I have brought full particulars with me. But unless the House presses me to do so, I would very much sooner let this matter alone. The Corporation is now settling down under its new Chairman, and I should be extremely sorry to see it thrown back into public controversy. If the right hon. Member for Vauxhall, who knows the position as well as I do, presses me to give this account I will do so, but I will leave it to him to decide.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: The only matter of dispute was this. The right hon. Gentleman has said that he has not had any dispute with the Corporation on any matter. Mr. Hardie said that in fact there was a dispute, that the Corporation, on 24th January, unanimously disagreed with the price increases. Here is a dispute between the Minister and Mr. Hardie, and I would ask for an elucidation of that. We want to know whether the Minister, in denying that there has been a dispute, was, in fact, speaking the truth. A chronological account of what happened over a long period may or may not be relevant on this matter. But cannot the right hon. Gentleman answer this simple question?

Mr. Sandys: I said frankly to the right hon. Gentleman the other day that it was extremely difficult to answer yes or no to the particular question which he put to me. If he puts it like that, I feel that I have no alternative but to go through with this account. I will make it as brief as I can.

Mr. Jack Jones: I want to be very fair. I do not want to make the position any worse. What we on this side of the House are asking for is the opportunity to clear


the name of the gentleman referred to, and what we would like to hear is not the correspondence in chronological order leading up to what did happen, but the letter of 24th January.

Mr. Sandys: I am not prepared to publish the letter of 24th January without all the other relevant letters, including those which passed between the right hon. Gentleman and the Corporation. I am not prepared to publish part of the correspondence without publishing the whole of it.

Mr. Strauss: I would not mind what letters of mine were published in this matter; but they could have no possible relevance to the present increases in price.

Mr. Sandys: The right hon. Gentleman says that no correspondence between him and the Corporation could have any possible relevance to these price increases.
Let me say straight away that the first letter I would publish—because it happens to be chronologically the first one—would be one written by Mr. Hardie to the late Government on 28th September, in which the Corporation pointed out that the late Government's decision to ask for 800,000 tons of steel from the United States would bring about a trading loss to the industry of about £28 million and that it would be necessary to increase levies and, therefore, prices to that extent. It went on to say that prices would have to be increased as soon as the commitments were entered into, that is to say, last autumn.
The second letter which I would certainly ask to publish would be the reply, stating that the late Government accepted the principle that these increased costs would involve increased levies and that they would have to be passed on to the consumer in the form of increased prices.

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Strauss: That has no relevance to this matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Hon. Members obviously did not hear my speech. I was complaining of the size of the proposed increase, which is £56 million. I said that it was too early to make any increase at all, and I stand by that.

Mr. Sandys: I did warn the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Members opposite that if they pressed too much they would get something they did not like.

Mr. Crossman: What about the letter of 24th January?

Mr. Sandys: Now we will go right the way through.
My first communication with the Corporation was in the middle of December, when, in view of the correspondence to which I have referred, I wrote to Mr. Hardie asking him for the recommendations of the Corporation in regard to steel prices. At the same time, I informed the Corporation that the new Government, like their predecessors, were not prepared to reintroduce the subsidy to cover losses on imported steel and raw materials.
Early in January I received a reply from Mr. Hardie in which he argued at some length the case for reintroducing the subsidy. He agreed, however, that, if the Government were not willing to reintroduce the subsidy, prices would have to be increased to meet the increased cost of imports. Apart from this, in the same letter Mr. Hardie said that there would have to be immediate increases in steel prices to cover the increased home costs of scrap, transport, wages, and fuel.
Furthermore, Mr. Hardie enclosed two schedules setting out in detail the price increases which he proposed. One of them provided for price increases amounting to £20 million to cover increased home costs on the assumption that the Government were prepared to introduce a subsidy to meet the increased costs of imports. The other was based on the assumption that there would be no subsidy and provided for price increases amounting to £56 million.
Just as I was on the point of submitting the question to the Cabinet in the light of the Corporation's letter, Mr. Hardie telephoned the Ministry of Supply to say that he had changed his views about the necessity to increase steel prices, and that he wished to discuss the matter with me. A meeting took place on 23rd January at which Mr. Hardie was accompanied by the Deputy-Chairman of the Corporation and an official of the Corporation; the Parliamentary


Secretary and senior officials of the Ministry were also present.
Mr. Hardie told us that he had examined some of the annual accounts—he had not yet received them from all the publicly owned companies—and that he had formed the opinion that a substantial part of the increased home costs amounting to £20 million could, at any rate for a time, be met out of profits. On the other hand, Mr. Hardie put forward no suggestions as to how the increased costs of imports—amounting to between £40 million and £50 million—could be met. In consequence, after a full discussion, the conclusion was reached that since prices would in any case have to be raised to meet the increased costs of imports it would be right at the same time to provide for some part, but not all, of the increased costs of home production.
The next day, 24th January—which happens to be my birthday—Mr. Hardie wrote me the letter about which there has been so much talk.

Mr. Follick: He was wishing the right hon. Gentleman many happy returns.

Mr. Sandys: The purpose of this letter, and Mr. Hardie said so himself, was to place on record certain arguments against the proposal to increase prices, which he had himself advanced in the early part of the meeting the day before, and to ask that these views should be published at the same time as the new price order was issued.

Mr. Edelman: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene at this point of his argument?

Mr. Sandys: I am trying to explain this.

Mr. Edelman: Precisely.

Mr. Sandys: I will give way in a moment. I replied to the effect that we were agreed only the night before about the necessity for price increases, and that I was surprised that he should now suggest publication of entirely opposite views. I asked him to confirm that it really was the wish of the Corporation that these views should be published. Subsequently, I received another letter from Mr. Hardie in which he informed me he had consulted the Corporation, and that, as I expected, they did not wish the

views contained in the letter of 24th January to be published.

Mr. Edelman: I want to hold the right hon. Gentleman down to the letter of 24th January. He has been giving what I submit is a summarised and garbled version of correspondence. I want to ask him specifically. I challenge him to publish the letter in toto. It is no use referring to subsequent reversal of the statement in the letter of 24th January, because after that he himself interviewed members of the board.

Mr. Strauss: May I, before the right hon. Gentleman replies, put this point? It appears to us that he is still dodging the issue. He told us today, as he did on a previous occasion, what was the purpose of Mr. Hardie's letter. All right; we accept that. The question is: Did he tell the Minister, in that letter, that the Corporation were unanimously opposed to any price increases? That is the point about which we have never been told. If the Corporation did oppose any price increases suggested by the Minister then, obviously, the Minister and the Corporation were in conflict and his statement to the House was incorrect.

Mr. Sandys: I thought I had been clear. [HON. MEMBERS: "Read the letter."] Here is the correspondence, which shows the House the amount of paper involved. [HON. MEMBERS: "Read the letter."]

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Members: Would it not be better to read the letter?

Mr. Sandys: No. If I read the letter I should be obliged to publish the whole correspondence. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Let me make it clear that the letter did not convey to me—[HON. MEMBERS: "Read it."] The purpose of the letter was to place on record, as it said, arguments which had been advanced by Mr. Hardie at a meeting the day before. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not read it?"] At the conclusion of that meeting at which Mr. Hardie and Sir John Green were present, there was agreement that the views expressed in that letter should not be acted on.

Mr. Crossman: rose—

Mr. Sandys: I cannot keep giving way. Let me continue. This is pertinent to


the letter of 24th January. On 28th February—

Mr. Ivor Owen Thomas: On a point of order. The Minister is proceeding to relate the argument to what he says is contained in the letter of 24th January. Is it not essential, to enable the House to determine whether the Minister is arguing correctly or drawing right conclusions, that the letter should be read?

Mr. Speaker: As I understood the right hon. Gentleman, he could not read one letter without reading the whole lot of them. Therefore, that is not a point of order.

Mr. Thomas: On a point of order. The Minister has just stated that he wishes to convey a certain meaning to the House about the conclusions drawn from the letter of 24th January. I suggest to you that there is a duty on the Minister to enable the House to see if he is drawing correct conclusions or not, to read the letter.

Mr. Speaker: That is a point of debate and not a point of order.

Mr. Fernyhough: On a point of order. Would it not be for the general convenience of the House if the right hon. Gentleman read the particular letter in question? [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] So far as the other letters are concerned, he can have them put in tomorrow's HANSARD.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order; it is not, in fact, a point for me at all. It seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman's argument, if I followed him correctly, was that it would be misleading to read one without the others.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: On a point of order. When a single letter or a series of letters of a public nature are referred to by a Minister in this way, and when the question arises whether the Minister's summary of them is correct and complete, surely he is bound to lay them on the Table?

Mr. Speaker: If the correspondence is summarised, it is not necessary to lay it on the Table.

Mr. Mitchison: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, in the present case surely the

matter has gone beyond the summary. The point before the House is whether what I may term the Minister's version of this letter is correct and complete. Surely when that point arises the Minister is bound to lay the letter on the Table.

Mr. Speaker: I think the rule is that, generally, if the Minister quotes from a document it ought to be laid. On this occasion I have heard the right hon. Gentleman summarise and give the effect of the correspondence and I do not think that that result follows. Besides, I am not quite clear, as this is a new thing in our procedure, how far the old rule refers to correspondence between a nationalised board and a Ministry. It seems to be slightly different in its general bearings from the old question that we used to have on State documents, despatches, and so on.

Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas: Would you, Mr. Speaker, give your Ruling on this entirely new situation, namely, the correspondence between a corporation and the Government?

Mr. Speaker: I would have to give consideration before I gave a Ruling on a new matter of that kind and it is quite reasonable for the House to give me time to think it over.

Mr. Mitchison: I must excuse my insistence, but surely the basis of the rule is the public character of the correspondence, Sir. Is not correspondence between a public corporation and the Minister sufficiently public for that purpose? Should we otherwise be discussing it in the way we are? If the question depends on quotation, surely the mere act of verbal quotation, the uttering of a few words, cannot make all the difference? If the question really is the tenor and contents of the letter, then quotation, or misquotation, cannot be the test.

Mr. Speaker: The rule in this House is analogous to the rule in courts of law, that the tribunal—in this case the House—should have the best evidence in front of it. In that case, if the laying of one letter or citation of part of the correspondence would, in fact, give a misleading view of what has actually transpired, then it would be necessary to lay the whole of the letter or the whole of the correspondence. But in this case the old rule has been made perfectly


clear and I find, since the learned Clerk handed it to me, I have quoted it from memory correctly. It is that a Minister who summarises correspondence, but does not actually quote from it, is not bound to lay it on the Table. That is the rule, and it has been the rule ever since I have been a Member of this House.

Mr. Mitchison: Further to that point of order. With respect, Sir, this is not a question of summarising correspondence. We have been given the Minister's version, letter by letter of a whole series of letters, and so as far as there is any parallel with the law courts, the question at issue is: What were the terms of the letter? That is the only question and, with great respect, what the Minister gives as his version of the letter cannot be a substitute for the letter itself.

Mr. Speaker: I am bound to say I differ in my judgment of what has transpired, and I say that, with great respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, I have heard nothing said by the Minister beyond a summary of the correspondence, and I am within the recollection of the House.

Mr. A. Woodburn: Mr. Speaker, is there not a point about this correspondence which differs from anything else of the kind that has been brought before the House, because the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on this side have challenged the accuracy of the Minister's summary of the document. Since the Minister's veracity has been challenged, ought not the House to have the documents produced, so that the matter can be cleared up?

Mr. F. Beswick: If I understand you correctly, Mr. Speaker, you are saying that the Minister has only summarised the document and not quoted from it, but in column 826 of 25th February, 1952, there are two lines which appear to be a direct quotation, as I understand it, from the letter of 24th January.

Mr. Speaker: That is a point which could have been raised on the previous occasion when that was actually quoted

Mr. Sandys: With reference to column 826 of 25th February, Sir, when I said

that the next point raised in Mr. Hardie's letter to me related to raw materials and he said, "I have urged steps to … that is his letter, which was published on his resignation.

Mr. R. E. Winterbottom: Has not the right hon. Gentleman in his explanation of the letter of the 24th, used at least one word by Mr. Hardie in purporting to summarise the whole of the letter? If so, does that not constitute what I would call an actual quotation from the letter?

Mr. Speaker: It may be that the hon. Gentleman would call it that, but I would not.

Mr. Chetwynd: The Minister, in giving the reasons for this correspondence, quoted what Mr. Hardie said in his letter. He said that they were the actual words used in the letter.

Mr. Speaker: I do not think that would carry the whole letter with it.

Mr. Sandys: I am afraid that these interventions have made my speech longer by ten minutes or a quarter of an hour; but I will try to carry on where I left off.
Mr. Hardie wrote a further letter to me on 28th January, in which—and this I say in fairness to him—he denied that any agreement had been reached at the meeting on 23rd January. He challenged the minutes of the meeting which were taken by an official of the Ministry of Supply. Sir John Green, the Deputy-Chairman, who was also present at the meeting, confirmed the conclusions, and agreed that the minutes were correct.

Mr. Manuel: So the right hon. Gentleman rewarded him.

Mr. Sandys: In view of this obviously confused situation, I invited the entire Corporation to meet me. This was, I thought, the right thing to do. It has been alleged that I put pressure on the members of the Corporation to change their views. That allegation is completely and utterly untrue, as I have said in the House before. I only asked the Corporation to give me clear and unequivocal advice as to whether steel prices should be increased and, if so, by how much. I was determined not to come before this House, having signed an


Order increasing steel prices, and, when asked by an hon. Member opposite, "Was this done in agreement with the Corporation or not?", to have to reply, "I do not know."
That was the position after the 23rd January meeting. There was little opportunity for me to bring any pressure to bear on the Corporation members, even had I wished to do so, for, before the meeting started, Mr. Hardie warned me that if, during the meeting, I asked the opinion of any member of the Corporation other than himself, he would leave. [Interruption.] I am telling the House exactly what happened. After I had put my question to the Corporation, and asked for its advice, the members went away to discuss the matter by themselves. When they returned Mr. Hardie informed me as I have already told the House, that the Corporation by a majority, was of the opinion that prices should be increased by an amount sufficient to yield £56 million a year. Shortly afterwards, as the House knows, Mr. Hardie resigned.
I apologise for having had to go into so much detail—[HON. MEMBERS: "Not enough"]—but, having been accused of not being honest with the House, I had no option but to tell the whole story.

Mr. Chetwynd: It is an old story.

Mr. Sandys: Now perhaps I can address myself to the main issue of steel prices.

Mr. Edelman: The Minister has said that he has told the whole story, but we on this side categorically deny that. We ask him now, as on previous occasions, to publish the relevant letter of 24th January. May I repeat the challenge to him to publish, in extenso, the letter of 24th January?

Mr. Sandys: I will not continue arguing about that.

Mr. Crossman: The right hon. Gentleman has a lot to conceal.

Mr. Sandys: I want to get on to the question of steel prices.

Mr. Manuel: Read the letter. What was in the letter?

Mr. Sandys: If hon. Members go on long enough, I will, out of sheer boredom.

Mr. Crossman: The right hon. Gentleman nearly did it.

Mr. Sandys: What I have in my hand is not the letter.
I turn to the first criticisms made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall. He maintains that the price increases were mostly unnecessary because when he put prices up in August he anticipated the rise in costs, or many rises in cost, which had not then taken place.

Mr. Strauss: I said "some."

Mr. Sandys: At Question time, about a fortnight ago, the right hon. Gentleman interrupted me and said that he had anticipated the rise in the cost of freight charges. I hope that I shall show the House that there is not a vestige of truth in the statement that the right hon. Gentleman anticipated to any large extent the increased costs which have since taken place in the home costs of the iron and steel industry.

Mr. Strauss: The right hon. Gentleman need not labour that. I did not say more than that I anticipated some of the costs. I did not say the bulk of them. But some of these increases in cost were taken into account, and I thought that freight increases was one of them—I may be wrong.

Mr. Sandys: The right hon. Gentleman said that he anticipated a substantial part of the increases in costs—sufficiently substantial, I presume, for the right hon. Gentleman to feel justified in making the point tonight that, in view of his having anticipated these increases, higher prices were no longer necessary.

Mr. Strauss: I never argued that.

Mr. Sandys: That was the whole gist of the right hon. Gentleman's argument. I would have been prepared to say that it was, perhaps, a slip of memory, but I do not feel that I can treat the right hon. Gentleman better than he treated me.
I must say that I consider that he has not been quite honest with the House. The price increases which the right hon. Gentleman authorised in August were calculated to yield £65 million a year. They provided for higher home costs amounting to about £30 million. With the one exception of coking coal and certain small miscellaneous charges—where


the rise was imminent and occurred in September, all the increases in home costs included in the August prices had already taken place.
The largest item was an increase of £7½ million a year for wages. This arose from awards in November, 1950, and April, 1951, and corresponding cost of living adjustments. Other items allowed for in the August price increase were 3s. 6d. a ton on home scrap introduced in April. 1951, increases in the price of oil fuel in November, 1950, and April, 1951; an increase of 43s. 3d. a ton in the price of sulphuric acid in November, 1950 increases in the price of gas, electricity, refractories, and of other materials, all of which took place before last August.
As for the recent rise in transport charges, which the right hon. Gentleman said, in the course of a question, that he had anticipated, the August prices provided for increased transport costs of £4.04 million. This was the sum required to compensate for the 10 per cent. rise in railway freights introduced on 16th April, 1951, and the 2½ per cent. rise in road transport rates introduced on the 23rd April, 1951. Apart from these no allowance was made in the August price Order for transport costs. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be prepared to correct the statement which he made the other day.
Now I would like to say a word about the heavy increase in home costs since last August. Rail transport costs have gone up by no less than £4½ million a year; home scrap by £6 million; coal, coke and fuel oil by £8 million and other materials by £5 million. There has also been an increase in wages of £1½ million. Other cost increases, mainly due to the higher proportion of pig iron used in making steel because of the shortage of scrap, amount to £4 million. Altogether, these recent home cost increases come to about £29 million.
I say again that none of these had been taken into account in the August prices authorised by the right hon. Gentleman In view of this detailed analysis, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, with his usual fairness, will be willing to withdraw the statement he made the other day.

Mr. Strauss: I thought I had put the situation clearly before the right hon.

Gentleman entered into his argument. I said that I had taken into account some aspects. I am willing to withdraw the word "substantial." It does not alter my argument. I said in a supplementary question that whether I took into account a substantial or a smaller part has nothing to do with my argument. I am willing to accept the fact that it was a smaller part.

Mr. Sandys: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me one single element which he took into account and which is now being provided for in these new prices? Will he tell me a single element of increased cost which occurred after September—after the coking coal which I mentioned—which he anticipated? I do not believe that there is one.

Mr. Strauss: The right hon. Gentleman quoted one himself. My statement was that I took into account certain increases in cost which had yet happened but were almost certain to happen. He himself quoted this evening an increase in wages which had not taken place, but which we knew was going to take place. I took that into account in increasing prices and the right hon. Gentleman himself quoted the sum of £7 million.

Mr. Sandys: Not at all. I said the largest item in home cost allowed for last August was, as the right hon. Gentleman says, an item of £7,500,000 for wages.

Mr. Mitchison: Is not that substantial?

Mr. Sandys: Very substantial, but it arose out of awards in November, 1950, and in April, 1951.

Mr. Strauss: I think I am right in saying that the item has not yet been implemented. We were anticipating its implementation. Is not that right?

Mr. Sandys: I am talking about the recent increases in costs. I made that perfectly clear the other day and the right hon. Gentleman interrupted me and said, "I anticipated all that." We will leave it at that.
Now I turn to the question of the increased cost of imported steel and raw materials. The August prices, which allowed for an increase of £65 million, Included £35 million for the higher cost of imports at the rate then estimated by


the late Government. But that estimate was almost immediately upset by the late Government's decision to ask for 800,000 tons of steel from the United States. As I have already explained to the House, this led to a request from the Corporation for an increase in steel prices of £28 million. I am not criticising the right hon. Member for Vauxhall. He could not possibly have known that would happen, but it was the beginning of the increased costs on account of the imports of steel and raw materials.
Meanwhile, the prices of imported steel and iron ore continued to go up and the planned volume of imports has, of course risen still further as a results of the recent agreements concluded by the present Government. Altogether, the cost of imported steel and raw materials is now estimated to be about £46 million a year more than was allowed for in the August prices. This, added to the increased home costs of £20 million, makes the industry's total costs in 1952 about £75 million more than was allowed for in the August prices.
I would have thought it was as plain as a pikestaff that the industry could not bear these enormous increases without some rise in prices. However, from the speeches made tonight, it seems that the party opposite pretend that they do not recognise this obvious fact and that all these costs could be met from the profits of the industry. I say "pretend" because I think it would be an insult to their intelligence to suggest that they could be convinced by the kind of arguments they have advanced.
The right hon. Gentleman said that in view of the large increase in profits, we should not have put up prices, at any rate for the present. He quoted, in particular, that the profits of the steel industry had been going steadily upwards—£42 million in 1949, £52 million in 1950, and £63 million in 1951—a rise of about £10 million a year for the last three years. All I would say to that is that, last August, the right hon. Gentleman knew that the profits of the industry had gone up £10 million since the previous year, but he did not hesitate to put prices up by £65 million.
The hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) asked how far the

increased costs could be met out of profits. The accounts of the publicly owned companies up to the end of September showed a gross profit available to the Corporation at the rate of about £60 million a year. The right hon. Gentleman suggested at one stage in his speech that it was £75 million, but the figure is £60 million available to the Corporation. The difference between £60 million and the £63 million which has been mentioned before is that the £63 million includes inter-company dividends, dividends to outside shareholders and also the expenses of the Corporation and of the administration of Iron and Steel Stock.
This £60 million includes elements, as has been mentioned during the debate, which the late Government rightly did not take into account in fixing prices for the home market. It includes, for example, windfall profits of at least £8 million resulting from the revaluation of stocks last August, at the increased prices. It includes profits of over £10 million from extraneous activities such as engineering, chemicals and income from subsidiary companies overseas. It also includes the premium earned on exported steel. These items, which total about £30 million should not be taken into account in fixing prices for the home market. At any rate, that was the view of the late Government, and we are in agreement with it.
Even supposing, for the sake of argument, that all these extraneous and nonrecurring profits were thrown into the pool, still both ends would not meet. The right hon. Member for Vauxhall very rightly said that prices should be sufficient to enable the industry to pay its way and to set aside proper reserves. However we look at these figures, if there were not an increase in prices it is quite clear that the publicly owned companies would be faced with the impossibility of meeting increased costs of about £70 million plus the £10 million they need to service the Iron and Steel Stock out of gross profits of £60 million. That is elementary arithmetic. I hope that these figures—I felt it necessary to give them in detail—will satisfy the House that, if the industry was to remain solvent, some increase in prices was inevitable.
There remains the question of how much prices should have been raised. The method of fixing prices adopted by the


late Government was to calculate the average cost of production of each steel product. To this they added an allowance for depreciation and. a margin for profit. In working out the new schedule of prices issued last month we applied strictly the formula adopted by the late Government save only in one single respect, which was that we did not maintain in full the margin of profit allowed in the August prices. To maintain the profit margin at the previous level we would have had to increase prices by £75 million. In fact, we put up prices by £56 million, leaving an uncovered balance of £19 million, which, we hope, can be met out of the earnings of the industry.
So I would say that if these new prices are open to criticism it is not on the ground that they are excessive or premature; it is rather that they are too little and too late. The right hon. Member for Vauxhall pointed out that the expected imports of steel, particularly those from America, would arrive mostly in the second half of the year. He therefore argued that our price increases should have been delayed, if they were necessary at all, until later in the year. I think that is a fair statement of the argument of the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Strauss: Together with the further information in relation to what I believe to be the greatly increased profits, above the £63 million, which would be shown in the last quarter of last year.

Mr. Sandys: That is an entirely different point. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that the industry's profits are to be £80 million next year. I am not prepared to venture any guess of that kind. I was meeting his point about the timing of the price increases. It is quite true, as he says, that the imports of steel as distinct from other materials, particularly from America, will be considerably larger in the second half of the year; but the bulk of the increased costs in respect of imports do not arise from imports of steel.
Out of the £46 million increased import costs only £16 million is for steel. £30 million is for iron ore, scrap and pig iron. Iron ore by itself accounts for £20 million and, as those who know the industry are aware, iron ore shipments are heaviest in the early part of the year. It is, therefore, clear that the new prices needed to be brought in now

to cover imports—apart from the fact that there are £29 million of increased home costs, such as transport, coal, which have also to be met.
It was suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu) that our price increases were premature because the increases in costs which they took into account had not yet occurred. That is incorrect. We are not doing what the right hon. Gentleman said he did in August, but did not do. We are not anticipating future costs. We are taking into account increased costs, such as coal and transport, which have actually occurred. However, we are not increasing prices to the full extent of these increased costs.
The accusation has been made by several hon. Gentlemen that by raising prices we are adding to the general inflationary spiral. It is, of course, debatable whether at a time of acute steel shortage it is economically desirable to keep steel prices artificially low. Nevertheless, to make some contribution to the stabilisation of prices, we decided not to pass on the whole of the increased costs to the consumer. As I have already said, although increased costs in 1952 are estimated at £75 million, we have raised prices only enough to yield £56 million.
In those circumstances I am surprised that the Opposition thought it right to make this charge against us. I am the more surprised in view of their own record. When the right hon. Gentleman put up prices last August by £65 million he passed on to the consumer every single penny of the increased costs which had occurred since he had last raised prices in February. How does he explain that? Why did he not then practise what he has been preaching to us tonight? Is it that he has only discovered the danger of inflation since the change of Government?
I think that I have answered most of the main charges. The points can be summed up briefly. It has been said that no price increase was necessary. Costs have gone up by £75 million. Contrary to what the right hon. Gentleman has said, none of that was anticipated in the August price. If prices had not been raised the industry would have run into a heavy deficit. In any case, as I have explained, the late Government agreed in


principle with the Corporation last autumn, that some further increase in prices would be necessary to meet the increased costs of imports.
We are accused of fixing prices so that the industry can make large—I think they described it as "fat profits"—in readiness for de-nationalisation. In fixing the new price—as I have explained—we adopted the same formula as the late Government except that we slightly reduced the margin of profit. If our margin of profit is excessive then the August margin of profit fixed by the right hon. Gentleman was still more excessive. If the August margin of profit was moderate then our margin is still more moderate. As a contribution to economic stability we have, unlike the late Government, not passed on all the increased costs in the form of increased prices. In fact, we have

done what we could to hold prices. At the end of it all there remains the unchallengeable fact that British steel is still far and away cheaper than that of any other of the main steel producing countries of the world.

Mr. Ede: I only wish to deal with one point in the right hon. Gentleman's speech. My right hon. and hon. Friends are not satisfied with the way in which the letter of 24th January has been explained. We press for its publication, and if it is necessary that with it should be published the whole of the rest of the correspondence, so far as we are concerned we have no objection to that.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes. 174; Noes, 206.

Division No. 55.]
AYES
[1.0 a.m.


Acland, Sir Richard
Follick, M.
Morley, R.


Albu, A. H.
Foot, M. M.
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)


Awbery, S. S.
Freeman, John (Watford)
Mort, D. L.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Moyle, A.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.
Gibson, C. W.
Mulley, F. W.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Glanville, James
Murray, J. D.


Bence, C. R.
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.


Benn, Wedgwood
Grey, C. F.
Orbach, M.


Benson, G.
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Padley, W. E.


Beswick, F.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A (Ebbw Vale)
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)


Bing, G. H. C.
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Pannell, Charles


Blackburn, F.
Hall, John (Gateshead)
Pargiter, G. A.


Blenkinsop, A
Hamilton, W. W.
Parker, J.


Blyton, W. R.
Hannan, W.
Pearson, A.


Boardman, H.
Hargreaves, A.
Peart, T. F.


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Hayman, F. H.
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Bowden, H. W.
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)
Porter, G.


Bowles, F. G.
Herbison, Miss M.
Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)


Brockway, A. F.
Hobson, C. R.
Proctor, W. T.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Houghton, Douglas
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Hoy, J. H.
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)


Burton, Miss F. E.
Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Rhodes, H.


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.


Callaghan, L. J.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Champion, A. J.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)


Chetwynd, G. R
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Coldrick, W.
Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)
Ross, William


Collick, P. H
Janner, B.
Royle, C.


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jeger, George (Goole)
Schofield, S. (Barnsley)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)
Shackleton, E. A. A.


Crosland, C. A. R.
Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Short, E. W.


Crossman, R. H. S.
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Shurmer, P. L. E.


Daises, P.
Keenan, W.
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
King, Dr. H. M.
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)


Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Slater, J.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Snow, J. W.


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Lindgren, G. S.
Sorensen, R. W.


Deer, G.
Longden, Fred (Small Heath)
Soskice, Rt. Hon Sir Frank


Delargy, H. J.
MacColl, J. E.
Sparks, J. A.


Donnelly, D. L.
McGhee, H. G.
Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Stross, Dr. Barnett


Edelman, M.
McLeavy, F.
Sylvester, G. O.


Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Ewart, R.
Mann, Mrs. Jean
Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)


Fernyhough, E.
Manuel, A. C.
Thomas, David (Aberdare)


Field, W. J.
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Fienburgh, W.
Mitchison, G. R.
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Finch, H. J.
Monslow, W.
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)




Turner-Samuels, M.
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N. E.)
Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)


Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


Wallace, H. W.
Wigg, G. E. C.
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Weitzman, D.
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.
Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)


Wells, Percy (Faversham)
Wilkins, W. A.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Wells, William (Walsall)
Willey, Frederick (Sunderland, N.)
Younger, Rt. Hon. K.


West, D. G.
Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)



Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)
Mr. Popplewell and




Mr. Horace Holmes.




NOES


Aitken, W. T.
Gower, H. R.
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Graham, Sir Fergus
Osborne, C.


Alport, C. J. M.
Grimond, J.
Partridge, E.


Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Perkins, W. R. D.


Anstruther-Gray, Maj. W. J.
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
Peto, Brig C. H. M.


Arbuthnot, John
Hare, Hon. J. H.
Peyton, J. W. W.


Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Pitman, I. J.


Astor, Hon. J. J. (Plymouth, Sutton)
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Powell, J. Enoch


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Bucks, Wycombe)
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)


Baker, P. A. D.
Harvie-Watt, Sir George
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Heald, Sir Lionel
Raikes, H. V.


Baldwin, A. E.
Heath, Edward
Rayner, Brig. R.


Banks, Col. C.
Higgs, J. M. C.
Redmayne, M.


Barber, A. P. L.
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)
Renton, D. L. M.


Baxter, A. B.
Hirst, Geoffrey
Roberts, Peter (Heeley)


Beach, Maj. Hicks
Holland Martin, C. J.
Robertson, Sir David


Beamish, Maj. Tufton
Hollis, M. C.
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Holt, A. F.
Robson-Brown, W.


Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)
Hopkinson, Henry
Roper, Sir Harold


Bennett, Sir Peter (Edgbaston)
Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Birch, Nigel
Horobin, I. M.
Russell, R. S.


Bishop, F. P.
Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence
Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.


Black, C. W.
Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur


Bossom, A. C.
Hurd, A. R.
Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.
Schofield, Lt.-Col. W. (Rochdale)


Boyle, Sir Edward
Jenkins, R. C. D. (Dulwich)
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.


Braine, B. R.
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Shepherd, William


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N. W.)
Jones, A. (Hall Green)
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.
Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)


Brooman-White, R. C.
Kaberry, D.
Soames, Capt. C.


Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.
Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)
Spearman, A. C. M.


Bullard, D. G.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Stevens, G. P.



Leather, E. H. C.
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)


Bullock, Capt. M.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Burden, F. F. A.
Legh, P. R. (Petersfield)
Storey, S.


Butcher, H. W.
Lindsay, Martin
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Carson, Hon. E.
Linstead, H. N.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Channon, H.
Longden, Gilbert (Herts, S. W.)
Studholme, H. G.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. W. S.
Low, A. R. W.
Summers, G. S.


Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Cole, Norman
Lucas, P. B. (Brentford)
Teeling, W.


Colegate, W. A.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh.
Thomas, Rt. Hon J. P. L. (Hereford)


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)
Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)


Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert
Mackeson, Brig. H. R.
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)


Cooper-Key, E. M.
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Thorneycroft, R. Hn. Peter (Monmouth)


Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Maclay, Hon. John
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.


Cranborne, Viscount
MacLeod, Iain (Enfield, W.)
Touche, G. C.


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Macpherson, Maj. Niall (Dumfries)
Turner, H. F. L.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Maitland, Comdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Turton, R. H.


Crouch, R. F.
Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
Markham, Maj. S. F.
Vane, W. M. F.


Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Davidson, Viscountess
Marples, A. E.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Deedes, W. F.
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (Marylebone)


Digby, S. Wingfield
Maudling, R.
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Donaldson, Comdr. C. E. McA.
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


Doughty, C. J. A.
Molson, A. H. E.
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Fell, A.
Monckton, Rt. Hon Sir Walter
Waterhouse, Capt Rt. Hon. C.


Finlay, Graeme
Nabarro, G. D. N.
Watkinson, H. A.


Fisher, Nigel
Nicholls, Harmar
Wellwood, W.


Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.
Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)
White, Baker (Canterbury)


Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Fort, R.
Nield, Basil (Chester)
Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)


Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)
Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
Nugent, G. R. H.
Wills, G.


Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Nutting, Anthony
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Gammans, L. D.
Oakshott, H. D.
York, C.


Garner-Evans, E. H.
Odey, G. W.



Godber, J. B.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Antrim, N.)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Gough, C. F. H.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.
Mr. Drewe and Mr. Vosper.


Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — HOSPITAL BOARD, NEWCASTLE (FINANCE)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Vosper.]

1.15 a.m.

Miss Irene Ward: Before I come to the substance of the case I wish to make tonight, I should like to express my appreciation of the steps that the Minister has taken to try to deal with the financial position of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Regional Hospital Board, and I am sure this appreciation will be shared not only by members of the Hospital Board, but by all those who share the amenities in the parts of the world covered by the Regional Board.
I am sorry in the comments that I have to make tonight I shall have to quote from a series of documents, but I am anxious to place on record the unfortunate position in which this Regional Hospital Board finds itself owing to the regional basic allocation made to it at the time when the hospital services were brought into operation. First of all, I want to quote from the last available Annual Report of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Regional Hospital Board issued in March, 1951, and it is on the quotation from this report that I really base the case that I want to put tonight.
The position, according to the senior medical officer, Mr. W. G. Patterson, is that the 1951 census figures give a population of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospital Region as 2,911,922—that is approximately 6.64 per cent. of the total population of England and Wales. The amount of money, running costs and capital allotted to the hospital service in Newcastle Region for the year 1951–52 was £11,266,000 for Regional Hospital Board hospitals and £1,156,567 for the teaching hospitals, a total of £12,422,567. That is approximately 5.1 per cent. of the £243 million allotted for the hospital service during 1951–52 for the whole of England and Wales.
It is apparent that the population of the Newcastle Hospital Region is getting about 23 per cent. less than its proper share of the nation's expenditure of the hospital service, if it is accepted that the hospital needs of the population of the Newcastle Region are

not materially less than the needs of the population in other parts of the country.
Whatever may be the reasons, good or bad, that existed prior to July, 1948, and which have left some parts of the country with a good hospital service and some parts with a bad one, there can be no justification in the National Health Service for maintaining grossly different standards of hospital service in different parts of the country. On the population basis and with the country's present expenditure on the hospital service, the Newcastle Region should be getting approximately £16 million per annum instead of £12,422,000. That was to combine expenditure on the amount provided by the Board of Governors and the Regional Board.
The Report states:
Even allowing for high wage rates in some areas, Newcastle and those other regions which are at present given less than their fair share of the national hospital money cost must hope that, year by year, their hospital services will be given preferential treatment in the allocation of additional money so that, over a period of ten or fifteen years, for example, they may be raised step by step to the average of the country. It would be idle to expect that such major discrepancies in the standard of hospital service throughout the country could be completely adjusted in less than ten to fifteen years.
The whole case for linking hospital expenditure with population is that over areas and populations as large as those of the Newcastle region and of the other thirteen hospital regions in England and Wales, there is very little hospital service given to the population of the Newcastle region and similar regions by the Metropolitan and the other regions which, relative to populations served, receive a high proportion of the country's hospital money at present.
Then, the last paragraph, which is very important in view of our financial position today, states:
Should reductions be required in the total expenditure on hospital services in the country in future, there is an equally strong case that such reductions should be imposed last of all on those areas which, at present, have relatively poor hospital services.
The last quotation is from the Treasurer's section, and here it is disclosed, in comparison with the global sums originally approved for 1950–51 for management committees throughout England, that of the amount allowed per bed and per head of the population the Newcastle Region was the second lowest in the country; and the Board felt that this was a factor which should be most


strongly brought to the notice of the Minister.
This really places on record the views held by the Regional Board, namely, that the attention of the Minister should be drawn to our unfavourable position; and it is for that reason that I am raising this matter tonight.
I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop), who was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health in the last Government, is present, because I am somewhat surprised that, having regard to his position, he was not able to safeguard the interests of the Region in which his constituency is situate.
When I had my attention directed to this latest report of the Newcastle Regional Hospital Board, I immediately got into touch with the Minister of Health, and I also, on receiving his letter, with which I shall deal in a moment, got in touch with the Chairman of the Newcastle Regional Hospital Board. I then found that a deputation had already gone to the Ministry of Health to draw attention to the unfavourable position in which we find ourselves.
I should now like to quote one or two lines from the letter of the Chairman of our Regional Board. On 29th February he said:
We had a deputation at the Ministry at the end of January and on the whole we were satisfied with their outlook and with the assistance that they gave us there and then. This was an immediate grant of £15,000 to be spent in the current financial year and an additional £200,000 for next year as mentioned by the Minister. I agree with you, however, that although we are happy to receive monies which other regions are unable to spend and although that indicates that the Ministry are sympathetic with our problem, the basic trouble is the original allocation of the funds amongst the regions. I would, however, like to stress that we have put our case to the Minister on a long term basis, because we realise that both money and material are at present in short supply. What we are aiming at is to obtain a larger allocation of capital monies over the next ten to fifteen years in order to catch up with the better areas of the country, bearing in mind also that additional building and expansion carries with it the need for additional monies on revenue account.
I am interested to see that the Minister is sympathetic to our view, but we must keep on pressing the Ministry year by year in order to get a fair crack of the whip. I am bound to say that, over a wide variety of subjects, during the last

few years the North of England has felt that it has had one or two very raw deals.

Mr. A. Blenkinsop: I think the hon. Lady would agree that on what is perhaps the most important consideration it has had an exceedingly good deal in that the people today are fully employed.

Miss Ward: I do not want to be diverted to a discussion on employment, but I must answer the point. I am glad to be able to do so. For a wide variety of reasons, but largely owing to the policy of the Conservative Government elected in 1935, we have been most fortunate in balancing our industrial economy and dividing it between heavy and light industry. I am also glad to pay tribute to the fact that the hon. Gentleman and his Government carried on the admirable work which had been started by the Conservative Government in the policy which they put into legislative form in 1935.
I do not want to be diverted from the case I am trying to make. I should like to allow the hon. Gentleman a few minutes in which to speak, and I do not want to prevent my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary from having sufficient time in which to answer the case. I am sure that that is also the wish of the hon. Gentleman.
I want to emphasise that I am merely trying to state the view of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Regional Hospital Board in this matter. I am, so to speak, a post office. When I got in touch with the Minister he confirmed the facts which the chairman had already stated—that my right hon. Friend had taken steps to try to remedy our unfortunate position. I am a realist in these matters and I always like to have any representations that I may make on record. I also like to have Ministerial answers on record. I put down a Question in order that the area itself should be informed on the action taken by my right hon. Friend.
Instead of giving me an answer to the Question I had asked, my right hon. Friend wrote me a somewhat lengthy letter stating the action he had taken and the reasons for it. Therefore, there is no Parliamentary record of the action of the Minister. I want that information


to be on our Parliamentary record. I want that because it shows the sympathetic approach of my right hon. Friend to this problem and also because his answer contained one or two observations which caused me some anxiety, and to which the chairman of the Newcastle-on-Tyne Regional Hospital Board referred in his letter.
Writing to him on 20th February, the Minister said:
The Board's general contention is that the Ministry should adopt a policy of steadily increasing year by year the proportion granted to the region of the total funds available for capital and revenue for the hospital service. We are entirely sympathetic to the Board's desire to overtake the shortage of hospital provision in their area, and we intend gradually to effect as great an improvement as can be done without injustice to other Boards. As you know, our resources are strictly limited, and there are other regions with as strong, or nearly as strong, a claim as Newcastle for a greater rate of development. For capital expenditure the current basis of allocation of the available money already gives this Board a rather higher amount per hospital bed than the average. This means that, in proportion to the existing accommodation in their hospitals, they already have a little more available for capital developments than is available on the average to other Regional Boards (though as you know the resources which the Government have felt able to provide for the hospital service at the present time permits only limited capital development anywhere).
I may add that that available capital, so to speak, affects us only in the 1950–51 year and the 1951–52 year. It makes no improvement on the previous years during which the hospital service had been running. Therefore, I emphasise the word, "current." The Minister went on:
In addition they have been getting recently some supplementary allocations of capital. The additional £15,000 mentioned in the official letter followed earlier additions this year totalling £135,000; the allocation of this extra £150,000 in all was made possible because of under-spending in other areas.
That is one point to which I want to draw special attention.
The Regional Hospital Board's claim is that the basic allocations left it in an unfavourable position. We see no reason why our just claims should have to be met out of under-spending in other areas. The Minister went on:
Last year, for the same reason, we were able to make an additional allocation to the Board (over and above its strict allocation) of over £224,000. These are large additions

and have been made available to the Board as soon as it was clear that we could do so. For next year the main allocations were fixed in accordance with the current basis some time ago, but again, if there is under-spending in some areas we would increase the allocation to Newcastle on request: but we shall have to wait until late Autumn until we know how things are going. The general basis of distribution for later years is, as we said in our letter, already under review, and we have the Board's representations well in mind; we shall of course also have to take into account the views of other Boards and it is too early to forecast what will emerge.
A question I want to address to my hon. Friend tonight is whether, providing our case for review of the original basic allocation is accepted, when that review takes place we can hope to have a fair share of whatever money is available from the Exchequer.
Then my right hon. Friend went on to say:
On maintenance expenditure, the Board asked for an additional £200,000 for next year, and we were fortunately in the position of being able to make a supplementary allocation of this amount, which brings the total for the year to £12,359,000.
That, of course, is still short of the £16 million which we make out to be our allocation. The Minister added:
This represents an increase of 14.6 per cent. over the amount approved for this year, and this percentage increase is the highest in the country.
That is a very nice way of putting it, but I assume my right hon. Friend would not have given us this percentage increase unless it was justified. Therefore, I feel I am entitled to say once again how very unfavourable was the original basic allocation made to the region I represent. The Minister went on:
Again we shall bear in mind the Board's representations when we come to consider the allocations for maintenance purposes for later years.
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for the action he has taken. I have a very shrewd suspicion that when my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary comes to reply she will be able to give me a number of figures proving that we are now in a reasonable position and that our situation has been greatly improved. But, nevertheless, it could not have been improved unless the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Regional Board had been in a position to emphasise its claim, and unless other regions had had money which they had underspent, which was


available to put into the regional pool. I consider that that discloses a very unfortunate position.
I should also like to draw the attention of my hon. Friend to another point which I think accords with what was pointed out by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East. Industrially we are an expanding area. We are expanding our iron and steel industry and we are embarking upon additional chemical works. We have taken over a good deal of light industry. In other words, we are a vigorous and expanding area. We look to my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend to see to it that the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Regional Board has its fair share of the national moneys.
I quite agree with the way in which the case has been presented and with the way in which the increased allocations have been decided upon, but I want a specific assurance that we shall not be dependent purely upon underspending in other areas, and that when the reviews take place we shall indeed have the fair basic allocation for our hospital services which we believe undoubtedly is our due.

1.39 a.m.

Mr. A. Blenkinsop: There is very little time left, and I only want to say we in the North-Fast are all agreed that the Newcastle region is in a very difficult position and also that it must take considerable time before that position can be put right. We worked on the problem for a considerable period. We know that supplementary allocations were made on 7th July and 9th October last year, as well as the additional sums referred to by the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Miss Ward).
I expect that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to point out that over a considerable period there has been close attention paid to the problem of the Newcastle region, as there has been to other regions as well, because of the very real and urgent need in that region as elsewhere.

1.41 a.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): It would be difficult to answer all the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Miss Ward) in the three minutes left to me,

but I would emphasise the confusion of thought which obviously exists in her mind about two entirely different aspects of expenditure in the gross sum which is allocated to regional hospital boards.
There is, on the one hand, the major part, which is used for revenue and maintenance, and the other part, which is used for capital improvements and new capital expenditure. The revenue for maintaining existing resources for staffing, wages, laundry, food and the like within a hospital must be related to the existing hospital resources, and not to the population. If there are not the nursing staff and the hospitals there, one cannot expect grants for maintenance.
The figure of £16 million is unrealistic when considered in relation to the number of hospitals in the Newcastle Regional Hospital Board area. The greater part of the £12 million-odd they receive is used for maintaining existing hospital services. I would point out, though, that this year's allocation of £12,359,000 to the Board includes an amount for developments and improvements which is the second highest in the country. Also, in that allocation is an additional £200,000 which will enable the region to refrain from closing four maternity hospitals with 63 beds and an infectious diseases hospital with 30 beds, and will give them a chance to open the greater proportion of 546 beds many of which are for tuberculosis patients.
As far as the capital side is concerned—my hon. Friend will appreciate that this is limited severely by the amount available for capital investment programmes at present—the decision as to the amount of money we can use for this purpose is taken at Cabinet level, and when we get our modest share for hospital purposes it must be divided as fairly as possible among the regions. For the year 1950–51 the Newcastle Regional Hospital Board received £738,000, which included an additional allocation of £224,000; in 1951–52 they had, with an additional grant of £150,000, a total of £630,000; in 1952–53, with the programme drastically curtailed, they will receive a basic allowance of £384,000.
It is estimated that the Newcastle Region has 6.64 per cent. of the total population of England and Wales. They have 6 per cent. of the staffed beds in


England and Wales, and the share of capital allocation given to them this year will be 6.8 per cent. of the available capital we have at our disposal for regional boards.
Another point of complaint of my hon. Friend was that we appeared to have supplementary moneys which we could allocate later in the year. We allocate as fairly as we can to all regional boards, but occasions do arise when money which has been allocated cannot be used—perhaps, for the installation of a new boiler which does not arrive, or for building that cannot be started on a site, which, through long legal negotiations, does not

become available within the capital year—and this gives us an opportunity to use and transfer capital which it would not be possible to use in that current year for other priority purposes elsewhere. We regard that as sensible flexibility and an eminently desirable arrangement so that we can switch, as circumstances change, from one area to another.
I hope that, in the short time available to me, I have been able to deal at least with the major points which my hon. Friend raised.

Adjourned at Sixteen Minutes to Two o'Clock a.m.